160 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
While speaking of the question of the prices charged by chemists for the various 
articles in which they deal, I may just mention an effort which has been made by the 
Chemists’ Association of Edinburgh to establish a uniform system, by printing periodi¬ 
cally, under the direction of a committee, a list for the guidance of the chemists in that 
city. Without entering into the question of the tariff therein adopted, which, as a rule, 
may be a fair and remunerative one, I might just observe that the charges for dispensing 
seem to me unusually and unnecessarily low. It is necessary for us, with the conditions 
of education for the necessary performance of our duties, that our remuneration, in re¬ 
spect to dispensing, should assimilate to that of professional men, rather than of mere 
traders. Neither would my experience lead me to believe that the public require such 
excessively low charges, and, indeed, that they value more highly medicines prepared at 
the ordinary metropolitan, rather than at competition prices, which imply a less-skilled 
labour. I would suggest, as worthy the consideration of this Conference, with the success 
of the Edinburgh experiment in view, whether a committee might not be appointed to 
consider the whole question, and to report to a future meeting. It is a subject which 
the Pharmaceutical Society, as a corporate body, cannot move in, and one which is 
manifestly within our scope. 
Another subject which occupied some attention at our last meeting was the use of 
methylated spirit of wine for purposes not contemplated in the law which gave duty-free 
spirit as a boon to manufacturers. The abuses attending its general introduction are 
happily, as might have been expected, rapidly working their own destruction. The 
excise authorities, who for a long time treated with contempt representations made to 
them by those practically acquainted with the devices made use of by unprincipled 
dealers, and best aware of the extent and nature of the abuses to which it was subject, 
have at last opened their eyes to at least some of the facts of the case, and they have 
now issued regulations to restrain the sale of certain abominations, which, under the 
colour of medicine, had been largely vended as mere stimulants. These regulations tire 
as follows:— 
11 That the attention of supervisoi’S and officers be directed to certain apparently medi¬ 
cinal preparations of methylated spirit sold under the name of ‘ Indian Brandee ’ and 
4 Whiskee,’and if in any instance it can be ascertained that these or similar preparations, 
by whatever name known, are sold or used in any other manner than as medicine, the 
circumstance is to be reported. « 
“No such preparation, nor sulphuric ether, sweet spirit of nitre, nor any other medi¬ 
cated spirits made from methylated spirit can be legally kept or sold by any licensed 
spirit retailer.” 
This is one step in advance, but by these extracts from the lately issued excise regu¬ 
lations it is evident that we are as a body looked upon with less suspicion than some of 
our neighbours, and it behoves ns to beware how by heedless or wilful conduct we do 
aught to compromise the confidence accorded to us by the Inland Bevenue Officers. 
With regard to the employment of methylated spirit in medicine, we can only at 
present say that the action of methylic alcohol, even in its purest form, taken internally 
is so widely different from that of spirit of wine, and is altogether so uncertain and vari¬ 
able, that the duty of the Pharmaceutist is simple and well-defined, to abstain entirely 
from its adoption for any Pharmacopoeia preparation. 
There is not much worthy of note in respect to newly-introduced remedies since we 
last met, except in what is to us of scarcely second importance,—the question of additions 
to the diet of the sick-room. So large an amount of attention has been attached to two 
sirbstances, that I can scarcely pass them over unmentioned. The tendency of medical 
practice in the present day is, perhaps, against us in the matter of physic, but it is as¬ 
suredly in our favour in respect to regimen, and we may yet live to see the time when 
our leading pharmaceutists may have to devote a still larger portion of their attention 
to dietetic articles. The two substances alluded to, namely, malt as an addition to the 
food of infants, and the extractive matter of meat as a means of procuring a convenient 
and easily digested animal food for the sick-room, owe their origin to the suggestions of 
Baron von Liebig. As they are stamped with the authority of his name, it will ill become 
me to express any decided opinion as to the merits of either. Without doubt the malt 
flour has been found to answer in many cases where other foods have been rejected, 
though I suspect that its chief value will be most apparent in these exceptional cases. 
With respect to the extract of beef I shall say nothing; it has come into such extensive 
