544 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
which they are to be ultimately preserved. This may be done simply with short, 
narrow strips of paper, gummed or glued so as to hold down the stems and 
more prominent parts. Specimens thus fastened can be readily removed, when 
it is desirable to replace them by better ; but for an herbarium that is to be 
frequently handled (and by others than its owner) it is preferable to resort to a 
method of attaching specimens still more secure, and this is conveniently effected 
by the use of common glue brushed while hot over at least a portion of the 
specimen. Strips of gummed paper may be conveniently used in addition for 
the better securing of woody stems, roots, bulbs, and such like. The paper on 
which specimens are mounted should be good and stout, and in oblong pieces 
measuring about 17 inches by 10. The usual method of putting-by mounted 
specimens is to place them loose in brown-paper covers, which are afterwards 
arranged one above another in the pigeonholes of a cabinet. For an herbarium 
specially pharmaceutical, comprising as it necessarily would but a limited num¬ 
ber of specimens, a large book made so as to open fiat, would probably be even 
more convenient than the ordinary loose sheets in covers. The specimens would 
be retained in proper sequence, and be more compact and manageable than if 
upon separate sheets. Some well-arranged volumes of this kind would afford 
much of the benefit to be derived from engraved figures:—in fact in many 
cases, the examination of an actual specimen is far more impressive and informing 
than the inspection of a plate. The authors of the British Pharmacopoeia have 
carefully mentioned in what works figures may be found of the several plants 
enumerated in that volume. The number of works thus referred to is twenty- 
six ; many of them are of great rarity and quite inaccessible to the majority of 
persons who would wish to consult them,—while to purchase the whole series a 
sum would be required approaching £230. 
I trust I have said sufficient to show that the formation of herbaria of medi¬ 
cinal plants is a subject that merits some attention at the hands of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society. 
ON MEDICATED PESSAEIES AND SUPPOSITORIES. 
BY HENRY B. BRADY, F.L.S., ETC. 
The subject of medicated pessaries and suppositories, upon which I propose to 
make a few remarks this evening, is, without doubt, one of much importance to 
the pharmaceutist, and as the whole attention that lias been devoted to it at 
these meetings seems to be covered in the Journal reports by two paragraphs of 
about four lines, each, it cannot be necessary for me to commence by apology 
for its introduction. The absence of any uniform practice in the mode of dfs- 
pensing pessaries or suppositories, such as exists in the case of mixtures or 
pills, of powders or liniments, is apt to give rise to serious annoyance. What 
would not a dispenser give, when a prescription for medicine, in either of these 
forms, is presented at the counter, to know exactly how it has been compounded 
at any other pharmacy,—and how his mode of dispensing it would bear com¬ 
parison with what might be obtained at the next establishment the prescrip¬ 
tion might visit ? His anxiety would not be in any way connected with the 
active part of the medicine ; he would be perfectly conscious that if the patient 
had the prescribed constituents in any reasonably convenient form, the properties 
would not be affected by circumstances of shape or external appearance, "yet in 
these minor details of dispensing his entire difficulty would lie. It becomes, 
therefore, a matter of considerable consequence to us that the subject should be 
reviewed, in order to determine what is the best rule of practice. 
As members of the fourth estate of the medical profession, we have little to 
