102 
PHARMACY AT THE DUBLIN EXHIBITION. 
serious errors in practice. Attempts at adopting a new method become more or 
less a failure, and lead to very serious difficulties, as I have frequently ex¬ 
perienced. Young practitioners may get on very well, having no old ideas to 
get rid of. The same kind of difficulties exist to a much greater extent with 
those who have the responsibility of dispensing physicians’ prescriptions. Old 
men cannot keep pace with the progress of chemical knowledge, and young men 
cannot easily pick up that which is antiquated, and perhaps written in a very 
indistinct and contracted manner or form. It is clearly in the interest of all 
concerned in the writing or dispensing of prescriptions, that such a nomencla¬ 
ture should be adopted as, if possible, to serve through all time, not only in this 
country, but wherever a Pharmacopoeia is found needful. I therefore fully 
concur in Professor Redwood’s suggestions, which are the more valuable as 
coming from one who, as a practical dispenser, is old enough to remember all 
the convenience and simplicity of the old terms, as well as the difficulties attend¬ 
ing the new. 
PHARMACY AT THE DUBLIN EXHIBITION. 
{Continued from p. 52.) 
There still remain for me to notice some objects in the British Department 
of the Exhibition, which, although not strictly pharmaceutical, appear to possess 
a certain interest for the scientific pharmaceutist. 
The excellent series of products illustrative of the manufacture of Paraffine, 
shown in the case of Mr. Young, of the Bathgate Chemical Works, is of peculiar 
interest. Starting with examples of the different varieties of shale and cannel 
coal, among which the Boghead Cannel itself, the mineral which has been the 
cause of so much vexatious litigation, is of course prominent, we have the whole 
range of products which are obtained by its destructive distillation at a low 
temperature ,—Naphtha (not a little used during the late high price of turpen¬ 
tine as a substitute for that liquid), Burning Oil , the familiar “ paraffine oil,” 
Lubricating Oil , and lastly, Solid Paraffine. It is much to be regretted, that 
a substance, which, at first sight, would appear to be admirably suited for many 
pharmaceutical purposes, which, if it would only permit of being introduced into 
ointments, for example, would possess the great advantage of not suffering oxida¬ 
tion, should still remain without any application in pharmacy. Paraffine is, how¬ 
ever, a most intractable material. It will not form good mixtures with the solid 
fats, and persistently crystallizes from its solution in liquid oils. Some years ago 
a French perfumer published a pamphlet, in which a very little information was 
diluted with much ingenious advertising, and which gave what professed to be 
a formula for “ hygienic cold-cream.” This was to be made with paraffine and 
almond oil, but I need scarcely say that the combination of these into a smooth 
uniform ointment is impracticable. Still, paraffine is not quite useless in shop 
and laboratory ; as it is unacted upon by either strong acids or concentrated so¬ 
lutions of caustic alkalies, it may be usefully employed for smearing the stoppers 
of bottles containing either, and so preventing their becoming too tightly fixed. 
Even solid caustic potash, chromic acid, or permanganate of potash, may be, with 
safety, enclosed in paper which has been prepared with paraffine, in the same 
manner as in making waxed-paper. 
The Alkali manufacture is illustrated by but a single British exhibitor. 
Messrs. John Hutchinson and Co. (36), I Vidnes, Lancashire , have'however a 
very good series of specimens. These include Soda Ash , crude and refined, 
Salt Cake . Caustic Soda of 60 and 70 per cent, real alkali, and Bicarbonate of 
Soda; Sulphur from “ alkali waste ” (which is, I suppose, sulphide of sodium) 
