EXCIPIENTS FOR, PILLS. 
355 
There is very little pure pharmacy among the French Canadians, the French 
druggists generally being qualified practitioners of medicine. The Bill, there¬ 
fore, chiefly concerns the English-speaking population, and will encourage the 
establishment of pharmacies in market towns where few now exist. In the 
province of Quebec, the power of examination in pharmacy is now vested in 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada, though few avail 
themselves of the privilege. The movement is looked upon favourably by 
leading members of the medical profession, and we trust the result will be for 
the advancement of pharmaceutical education and status in the province. 
Of our friends in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, we hear and see very 
little. The long distances and sparse populations render our intercourse with 
them very limited, even now that Confederation is an accomplished fact. It is 
to be regretted that the pharmaceutists of the Dominion cannot be enrolled into 
one body; but so long as all matters of education are in the hands of a divided 
provincial Legislature, this cannot be. The same difficulty is experienced in 
the States, and efforts are now being made there to assimilate the various State 
laws in reference to pharmacy. Every voluntary movement will assist towards 
general legislation, and we feel that the example of Great Britain will be most 
influential in placing pharmacy in its right position among all civilized commu¬ 
nities. 
EXCIPIENTS FOP PILLS. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—In the last number of the Journal, Mr. T. H. Hustwick expresses asto¬ 
nishment at my novel suggestion for making creasote pills with wax, and I may 
be allowed to express equal astonishment at his statement of results. But, not¬ 
withstanding his assertion to the contrary, I think I shall be able to prove the 
fallacy of his experiments, and my own justification for saying that wax is the 
best excipient for creasote in pills. But first a word or two on wax. Modern 
writers say very little about it except so far as relates to its external use, but 
Bartholomew Parr, M.D., F.R.S., in his ‘ Medical Dictionary,’ 1809, gives 
some excellent directions for the internal use of wax, either in the form of emul¬ 
sion or pills. He says, combined with soap, opium, or a few grains of Dover’s 
powder, it is an excellent remedy for diarrhoea of long continuance ; and it 
seems to have been in use so far back as the time of that eminent physician and 
botanist, Dioscorides, who gave it internally for healing and softening, as it 
supplies mucus in the bowels. Again he says, Poerner used wax in complaints 
of the bowels, combining it with water as an emulsion, but its uniou with soap 
in pills is preferable. If Mr. Hustwick’s reasoning about turpentine being 
taken into the stomach to dissolve the wax applies, surely it would be as neces¬ 
sary to take spirits of wine after pills containing gum-resins, or dilute sulphuric 
acid after quinine pills, a proceeding neither pleasant nor practicable. 
Mr. Hustwick, at the conclusion of his article in the Journal, says, “ I have 
used drops instead of minims, believing that in such very small quantities the 
drop represents the minim near enough for all practical purposes.” This is the 
most important error made by Mr. Hustwick, as I shall presently show. I must 
here observe that I am a prisoner (from the kick of a horse), and not being able 
to try experiments, my kind friend Mr. Hornsby has done them for me, with 
the following results. Ten drops of creasote carefully dropped from a ^x stop¬ 
pered round stock bottle, measured "ivss, and twenty drops mxj ; but if dropped 
from an ordinary 5ss bottle, gtt.x measured only Tnivss. Gtt.xx = mvj, gtt.xxx 
but Tiixiv. This is a great discrepancy ; whilst the actual loss from a graduated 
minim tube is scarcely perceptible,— not more than half a minim in twenty. In 
