116 BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
remained pulverulent; from boiling alcoliol it could be readily crystallized. 
Notices contrasting so-called English aud German aconitine have appeared in 
many of the Continental journals; and it seems to be accepted as a settled fact 
that in England, aconitine signifies something very different from what it does 
abroad. But so far as I have observed, this assumption is far too sweeping :— 
at least I have found that aconitine in my possession manufactured in London 
by houses of repute (and what I examined had been purchased long before at¬ 
tention had been called to the subject) had precisely those properties which are 
characteristic of the true alkaloid. The chemistry of aconite, a most difficult 
subject, is now occupying the attention of some of our best pharmacologists, 
and their labours cannot fail to make plain some points in its history hitherto 
obscure. 
In the suggestive list of Subjects for Papers which our secretaries do^ not fail 
annually to bring before us, there has been for years included a catalogue of 
vegetable alkaloids each of which for one or several reasons, requires further 
investigation. One of these, Buxine, is the subject of a very interesting me¬ 
moir by our esteemed member Dr. Fluckiger, an abstract of which with some 
new matter he has been good enough to prepare for our meeting. I shall be 
glad if some other of our members will undertake to reduce this list. 
The adulteration of Olive Oil is a subject that has often claimed the atten¬ 
tion of chemists, aud the diversity of the tests proposed indicates how difficult 
it is to detect the sophistication of this important production. The increase in 
the manufacture of soap in some of the cities of southern Europe has led to the 
importation of a variety of oils and oil-seeds which have presented stiong temp¬ 
tations to tamper with the oil shipped as Olive Oil to foreign countries. For 
the benefit of any of our members who may feel disposed to work on such a sub¬ 
ject, I may mention that a prize of £600 is offered by the Chamber of Com¬ 
merce of the Department of the Alpes Maritiraes for a prompt and easy method, 
not involving a chemical process, of recognizing the mixture of seed-oils with 
olive-oil. . 
Our indefatigable colleague Dr. Attfield has during the past year communi¬ 
cated many practical and useful observations on pharmaceutical subjects, one of 
which I will here briefly recall to your memory. 
Precipitated Sulphur. —Notwithstanding that attention has been repeatedly 
called to the desirableness of supplying this drug in a pure form, it appears that 
the calcareous Milk of Sulphur, consisting of about 34 per cent of sulphur with 
66 per cent of sulphate of lime, is still very generally sold. In justification ^ 
is said that the public prefer the impure article as being whiter and more easily 
miscible with water, that it is the true Lac Sulphuris of the Pharmacopoeia, 
sulphur prascipitatum being a distinct preparation ;* to which I may add another 
consideration (too far fetched, let us hope, to be real), that the first is but halt 
the price of the second. It is hard to^combat popular prejudice, and some¬ 
times impossible for a druggist to convince his customer that one article is less 
adapted to his requirements than another. I have heard a person require the 
rankest and most offensive Cod Liver Oil in preference to what was sweet 
and new ; and have even known an ointment that was old and rancid habi¬ 
tually preferred to that which was freshly made. Yet in proportion to the 
amount of confidence reposed in the knowledge, skill and fidelity of the druggist, 
* It is true that the Sulphur prcecipitatum of the Pharmacopoeia of 1746 was ordered to 
be made with Sulphur, lime and Sulphuric acid; and the Lac Sulpliuris of that of 1721, with 
sulphur, lime or salt of tartar, and sulphuric acid. But it is questionable if the chemists of 
that period were aware of the essential difference of the products obtained, according to 
whether a lime or a potash-salt were decomposed with sulphuric acid, for Pemberton in his 
Dispensatory (1746) calls the preparations “similar”, but says that the one “will not look 
so white ” as the other. 
