LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
605 
The President directed the attention of the members to a number of rare chemical 
compounds prepared by Messrs. Johnson and Matthey, of London, placed on the table, 
and which the Council had purchased for the museum. The Secretary described some 
of the more important of these bodies, and the method of their preparation. Mr. Williams 
likewise made some remarks on the application of some of them to photography, espe¬ 
cially referring to the chromate of ammonia and the uranium salts. 
Mr. Martin Murphy, the Hon. Secretary, read the paper of the evening, entitled, 
“Notes on Recent French Pharmaceutical and Chemical Processes.” A short discussion 
on some of the methods referred to in the paper was maintained, in which Mr. Mercer 
made particular mention of the excellence of several French preparations in a Pharma¬ 
ceutical point of view, such as decoctions, tinctures, etc. A vote of thanks to Mr. Murphy 
concluded the business of the evening. 
The fourteenth general meeting was held on the evening of April 26th; A. Bed¬ 
ford, Esq., President, in the chair. 
The President exhibited Dr. Richardson’s spray distributer, for producing anaesthesia 
for surgical purposes, and illustrated its mode of operation by freezing water and other 
liquids by it. He gave an account of several operations where its application was at¬ 
tended with very satisfactory results, and entered into particulars respecting the advan¬ 
tages this method of producing insensibility to pain offered that rendered it preferential 
to chloroform. Several members volunteered remarks and suggestions respecting the 
effects of the instrument, several concluding that if the freezing of the muscles or parts 
were thoroughly effected, gangrene would ensue. Mr. Colby suggested that the “ spray 
distributer,” especially if of greater capacity than that exhibited, would be likely to prove 
a dangerous medium in the hands of those impelled by criminal intent, as by its power¬ 
ful frigorific effects on the brain, life might be destroyed in a manner that would prove 
difficult to detect. He apprehended that in infancy such an effect as that shown would 
infallibly destroy life. 
Mr. W. H. Colby read the paper of the evening, “ On Professor Hamilton s New Sys¬ 
tem of Chemical Nomenclature.” The author referred to the various emendations and 
reformations introduced into the nomenclature of chemical bodies, as chemical science 
advanced to its present state, and then passed in review the directing principles in those 
as well as in that which formed the subject of discussion. He next epitomized the 
chief characteristics of the new system, and entered more largely upon a consideration 
of its applicability and usefulness in relation to the teaching and the acquisition of a 
knowledge of chemistry, as not alone because the terms employed, in their combination 
and sound, would appear cabalistic, but because of the close relation in sound existing 
between the vowels generally upon which the new system so much hinged, and the lia¬ 
bility of persons, owing to this relation, of mistaking one vowel sound for another, and so 
leading to a confusion subversive of all the accuracy that the facts of scientific chemical 
revelation enforced. . 
A discussion on the subject of the paper and of the reflections of the author, Avas 
maintained by Messrs. Davies, Murphy, the President, and others, after which a vote of 
thanks, proposed by the President in very complimentary terms, was passed to Mr. 
Colby for his valuable paper. 
The Secretary, Mr. Murphy, then read a short paper on “ Recent i rench Chemical 
and Pharmaceutical Processes.” At the conclusion, the President offered some remarks 
on the value and importance of the facts referred to, and concluded by proposing a a otc 
of thanks to the Secretary, which Avas carried unanimously. 
The fifteenth and concluding general meeting of the present session was held on the 
evening of May 10th ; A. Bedford, Esq., President in the chair. 
The following donations Avere announced by the Secretary, viz. ‘ The Pharmaceutical 
Journal ’ for May, from the Society; ‘ Fallacies and Incorrect Statements on the subject 
of the Local Submarine Forest, their Exposure and Correction,’ by Rev. A. Hume,\LL.D., 
from the author ; also a donation of the following works by the Vice-President, Nathan 
Mercer, Esq., ‘ Journal of a Voyage to Australia,’ by Scoresby; ‘ Gregory s Organic 
Chemistry;’ ‘Essays on Scientific and other subjects,’ by Sir H. Holland, M.D.; ‘ Thom¬ 
son’s Animal Chemistry ‘ Chemistry no Mystery,’ by Scoffern ; and ‘ Foundation for a 
New Theory of Medicine,’ by Thomas Innan, M.D., etc. 
