230 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS IN CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY. 
pensing medicines in the hands of unqualified persons. The battle must be 
fought, if the victory would be won ; and if the druggists of Ireland would 
only put their shoulders to the wheel, as thousands of others have done, they 
would find in their enlightened ideas greater liberality of sentiment and 
desire for knowledge, fitting them for the high standard they now without 
foundation assert to be a right. And did they for one month possess that 
so-called right, short of experience it must prove but a miserable failure, and 
a decided patronage of the retrogressive movement. 
Pharmaceutical reform is now the universal demand, but let us not take a 
leap in the dark, by holding out concessions to any class of individuals short 
of the actual and prescribed course and test examinations, which are within 
the reach of all, but not to be obtained by any on the ground of rights, short 
of competition and fitness for possession of the topmost branch, whereon 
hangs the banner flaunting in the breeze, bearing the strange device, Excel¬ 
sior ! 
Believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours, 
A Lover of, and a Worker in, Pharmacy. 
NOTES AND ABSTRACTS IN CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY. 
BY C. H. W T OOD, F.C.S. 
Solutions of Protoxide of Nitrogen. 
M. Stanislas Limousin has published a long paper on protoxide of nitrogen, 
which presents several points of interest for pharmaceutists at the present 
time, because this gas has been a good deal employed recently to produce 
anaesthesia, more especially for dental operations. 
After referring to the general history of the gas, M. Limousin states that 
in the course of some experiments in 1866, he was much struck by the great 
solubility of protoxide of nitrogen in water. Having one day a bottle con¬ 
taining equal volumes of the gas and cold water, he was surprised to find that 
upon Violent agitation the stopper was forced down into the bottle with a 
detonation. Upon repeating his experiments he found the water (at about 
4° or 5° C.) was capable of dissolving its own volume of the gas at the ordi¬ 
nary atmospheric pressure. This solution has a pleasant, slightly sweet taste, 
and is more agreeable to drink than pure water. It communicates this par¬ 
ticular taste to wine and other liquids with which it is mixed. _ When the 
solution is effected under pressure, several volumes of gas are dissolved by 
the water, and this sweetness becomes more manifest. The author finds this 
solution of the gas to be perfectly innocuous ; he has drunk it in doses of two 
bottles a day, sometimes pure, sometimes mixed with wine, and it has pro¬ 
duced only a slight excitement and sensation of warmth to the head, some¬ 
what similar to the effects of alcohol. 
Dr. Demarquay has also studied upon himself the effects of this solution. 
He has taken it for several days, and he states that it produces upon the 
digestive functions a very marked stimulant and aperient action. 
'M. Limousin also directs attention to the solution of protoxide of nitrogen 
in ether. He finds that when ether is maintained at a temperature of —12° C. 
.by a freezing-mixture, it is capable of absorbing eight times its volume of 
nitrous oxide. Prepared under these conditions, the saturated ether acquires 
remarkable properties. It volatilizes with so much greater rapidity than 
pure ether, and produces thereby such a diminution of temperature that it 
would probably produce very energetic effects if applied to produce local 
