LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
503 
reading of the paper, the Chairman desired that members should direct their attention 
to points of practical interest, as suggested in Mr. Williams’s paper. 
Mr. Barber exhibited two forms of Fleming’s Patent Coffee-pot, which he had con¬ 
structed for purposes of maceration, etc. 
Mr. Abraham considered that Mr. Williams had treated his subject very philosophically,, 
and that much credit was due to him on that account. He thought the directions of the 
Br. Ph. so good that very little could be desired in addition ; he found those directions 
to answer well in every case, with the exception of the fluid extract o f baric, for the time 
required to exhaust the bark was such that the solution became mouldy. 
After some further remarks from the Chairman and others, a vote of thanks was 
passed to Mr. Williams for his able paper. 
The Ninth General Meeting was held on the evening, February 15th ; the President in. 
the chair. Donations of the ‘Pharmaceutical Journal,’ ‘The Chemist and Druggist,’ and 
of the ‘ Proceedings of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society ’ were announced, and thanks 
offered to the donors. 
The President laid a specimen of iodide of iron pill-mass on the table; it had been 
prepared according to the method which he described at a former meeting, and seemed 
to retain its properties remarkably well. He likewise exhibited a sample of “syrup 
of phosphates,” on which a considerable crystalline deposit had formed. Mr. Williams 
thought it possible that the monobasic phosphoric acid was contained in the preparation, 
as he found syrups in which this form of phosphoric acid was contained did undergo 
decomposition on being kept for some time. The paper of the evening was by the 
President, “ On the Pancreas and ‘ Pancreatine ’ in relation to the digestive process.” 
After detailing, with the aid of diagrams, the position of the pancreas in the viscera, he 
entered upon a description of its functions in digestion, and recounted the various in¬ 
vestigations of which it formed the subject. The author next passed to the considera¬ 
tion of “ pancreatine,” which seemed to be gaining ground as a remedial agent, and con¬ 
cluded his paper by reading the published results of Dr. Dobell’s treatment of pulmonary 
affections by means of pancreatine. 
A spirited discussion of the subject was maintained by Messrs. Williams, Davies, 
M‘Kinlay, and others, after which Mr. M‘Kinlay moved that a vote of thanks be offered 
to the President for his interesting paper. Carried unanimously. 
The Tenth General Meeting was held on the evening, March 1st; the President in 
the chair. There was a large attendance. The following were duly elected members, 
Messrs. Sharp and Houghton. Donations of the ‘Pharmaceutical Journal’ and of ‘The 
Chemist and Druggist ’ were announced, and the thanks of the meeting voted to the 
donors. The President called upon Mr. PI. Sugden Evans, F.C.S., etc. to read the paper 
of the evening, “On the Use of the Prism in Chemical, Micro-Chemical, and Physiolo¬ 
gical Investigations.” Mr. Evans said, that the subject of the action of the prism on 
light was not new to the members of the Association; but he hoped that while he 
should necessarily have to recount much of what the audience already knew, he would 
be able to enlarge the subject, so that some further knowledge might be acquired 
from what he should lay before the meeting. The author then passed in review the 
labours of Newton in relation to the analysis of light, and likewise those of Fraunhofer, 
Daniel, Brewster,“Miller, and other investigators, in determining the dark lines of the 
spectrum, and their position. The wave theory of light was described and illustrated, 
during which the author passed to the critical examination of the nature of the change 
in white light, as effected by the prism. Spectrum analysis was next considered, the 
author giving the merit of the conception of this modem mode of investigating matter 
to Talbot, whose published views on the subject were read by him. The labours of 
Schwann, Kirchoff, and Bunsen were alluded to, after which the author entered upon 
a critical examination of the respective modifications produced in the prismatic bands of 
white light after it had traversed different bodies held in solution, and from which he 
deduced that if prosecuted with zeal this field offered a promise of a rich harvest to the 
chemist and physiologist, particularly referring to the application of the prism to the 
microscope in physiological investigations. Mr. Evans said he had thus examined the 
blood globules of various animals, and found that in each, certain well-defined absorp¬ 
tion bands occurred, but their relative width and position in the spectrum varied to a 
