400 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
accessories and accidentals, and provide for the realities of our profession. Where can we 
at present learn how best to build a furnace, to erect steam apparatus, or to adapt gas to 
the general purposes of Pharmacy ? 
I myself believe strongly in the open fire, when properly managed; hut let the 
sharpest man in Liverpool proceed to build a furnace, what time, what money he will 
waste, till by repeated alteration he buys experience at the cost of previous failure. I 
know this personally, and therefore am the more anxious that successors should be spared 
the same annoyance. Let us have an Industrial Museum, and inscribe, as a motto on its 
walls, “Nemo sibivivat.” 
Steam demands our first consideration,—its work is beautiful though costly ; yet, not¬ 
withstanding its manifest importance, there is but one name before the public'(and that 
mainly by advertisement), of an engineer who has turned his special attention to steam 
as applied to Pharmacy. I deplore this state of things for him, and us, and steam,—the 
plain reason of its being out of sight, is out of mind. Druggists, as a body, know nothing 
of steam apparatus, except as regards its theory in books. They hesitate, and wisely, to 
adopt a system with which they are not practically acquainted. But let us have before 
our eyes, at least in model, the best work of the various best engineers ; let us have the 
opportunity of examining at leisure sensible forms of stills, steam pans, steam funnels, 
steam drying-rooms, steam apparatus generally, and who will be the loser, the pharma¬ 
ceutist or the manufacturing engineer? 
This time a voice comes from Cheltenham (Pharm. Journ. Vol. IV. p. 426, second 
series):—“ Is it possible, that at this present moment, each one is left to flounder through 
his own series of failures and misfits, without the opportunity of seeing a real working 
model suitable for the ordinary operations of Pharmacy?” Let this gentleman build a 
new laboratory, or be in need of some piece of steam apparatus adapted for a specific 
object, and then he will be better able to answer his own question. Without for a mo¬ 
ment doubting one man’s individual capacity, it is our duty as a corporate society to 
labour for the general good, remembering that the average in this world is made up of 
men of moderate abilities, and many of us (myself amongst the number) confess that we 
do fail and flounder most deplorably, and we should welcome with eagerness the help 
that might be afforded by an Industrial Museum. The voice continues thus:—“ Are 
our engineers and published works of information grown so old-fashioned, that they can¬ 
not be consulted ? and that therefore we must have an expensive centre of attraction, to 
which future aspirants to this particular branch of science may he borne ?” I grant there 
are the engineers to be consulted ; but I affirm that they are not likely suddenly to die 
off and become extinct in consequence of the foundation of an institution where their 
work may he better appreciated, and their practical skill find a fit arena for its exhibition. 
Steam has its fallacies. It is of vital importance to the pecuniary interest of the drug¬ 
gist that he should not be led away by his scientific predilections. 
Steam is of unquestionable utility, and it is a true economy when there is sufficient 
work to justify its introduction, or where it is employed on the manufacture of one par¬ 
ticular article. Steam is of questionable advantage where it has merely to meet the 
exgencies of an ordinary retail; it soon exhausts its work and is either lying idle, or, far 
worse, it is doing half its work. Whenever a boiler is supplying three pans out of six, 
because the rest are not required, steam is working at a disadvantage.* Never let this 
axiom be forgotten—machinery not in use is machinery getting out of order. In the case 
therefore of all, excepting very large establishments, we must turn our attention to those 
forms of apparatus which can be worked singly and so far economically. We cannot 
always use the open fire, but we may use gas. In spite of the improvements daily made 
around us, I believe the question of gas as applied to Pharmacy is as yet in its infancy. 
We want a scientific Soyer to enlighten us. 
My own experience is that so much and no more convenient apparatus can be ob¬ 
tained than you are yourself able to design. I hope to see the day when gas and its ap¬ 
plications will bring the resources of a laboratory within the range of the most mode- 
* I wish it to be distinctly understood that this notice of steam bears reference strictly to 
its financial and prudential relations with the peculiar business of a retail pharmaceutist. 
The great value of steam lies in its being a non-destructive source of heat. It is necessary, 
however, to caution too enthusiastic experimenters, that in order to work a laboratory satis¬ 
factorily, the product must bear due proportion to the producing power. 
