CORRESPONDENCE. 
' 5S3 
alarm a patient rendered unduly sensitive by 
disease. 
While writing on poisons, one can scarcely 
forbear a passing remark upon the tone 
of the comments which frequently follow 
a mistake by any unfortunate chemist. 
Correspondents rush to the front with con¬ 
demnations, suggesting possibly their own 
perfect arrangements which render such 
accidents impossible, but ignoring tho 
common liability to momentary aberration, 
which may set at nought all precautions. 
Pliny truly says, “Nemo mortalium omni¬ 
bus horis sapit.” It might be more manly 
and more useful to utter a word of sympa¬ 
thy and kindly regret, remembering the 
moral of the verse— 
“ Id commune malum; semel insanivi- 
mus omnes; 
Aut sumus, aut fuimus, vel possumus 
omne quod hie est.” 
I am, Sir, yours truly, 
Henry H. Pollard. 
Hyde, February lQth, 1870. 
Sir,—Mr. Wilkinson has, in his letter of 
last month, so well discussed one branch of 
the question raised by the proposed poison 
regulations as to leave little room for fur¬ 
ther comment; but I ask your permission 
to say a few words on another part of the 
same subject. 
Assuming, for the moment, that those re¬ 
gulations are in themselves desirable, in 
short, that nothing but the will is wanting 
to carry them out in their integrity, has it 
been sufficiently considered how they are to 
be enforced ? To do so effectually will, of 
necessity, give rise to an inquisitorial sys¬ 
tem. The Council must appoint a staff of 
inspectors, who will roam up and down the 
country, looking in upon us like excisemen 
at unexpected moments, and prying, as of 
right, into the internal arrangements of our 
shops; or, failing this, for 1 suppose it has 
no such power, it must await the result of a 
coroner’s inquest or magisterial inquiry. 
To intervene, then, is to lav an additional 
burden on the shoulders of a man already 
smarting, it maybe sinking, under a punish¬ 
ment which the public has in its own power, 
and which it never fails to inflict, after the 
disclosure of a serious mishap. That pu¬ 
nishment is, at lightest, the partial ruin of 
a business,—it may be starvation and the 
workhouse. No legal penalty can be so 
severe, its infliction so inevitable; yet the 
Council imagines that the fear of such a pe¬ 
nalty will suffice to transform the minds 
and habits of men, unaffected by the thought 
that their daily bread may depend on their 
care and circumspection. Will not these 
regulations, therefore, be worse than futile ? 
Useless against the majority, which already, 
in great part, conforms to them, they will 
exert no preventive action on the minority 
which does not, but only supplies the means 
of further and, under the circumstances, op¬ 
pressive punishment. 
Continental chemists congratulate us en¬ 
viously on our freedom; but the paternal 
governments which hold them in leading- 
strings at least grant a monopoly, and re¬ 
strain excessive competition. In this coun¬ 
try there can be no sucli compensation. 
Why, then, should we voluntarily surround 
ourselves with the irritating restrictions 
from which they would so glady escape ? 
The Council may have lost faith in the 
power of education and increasing intelli¬ 
gence. I trust and believe its constituency 
will be found more steadfast, and will hesitate 
long before giving its sanction to what can 
only be regarded as the commencement of a 
retrograde policy. 
Charles Eve. 
Hampstead, February, 1870. 
Dear Sir,—I was not so much surprised 
at the questions asked by a correspondent 
in the January number of the Transactions 
as I was by the answer given in the number 
for this month by Mr. G. Brown. A young 
student may have passed most creditably 
through his examination, and yet be igno¬ 
rant of many usages of the trade, and also 
unacquainted with many old names of drugs 
and chemicals which still prevail in the pro¬ 
vinces. It is needful to be acquainted with 
the earlier processes of some chemical ma¬ 
nufactures to comprehend the real signi¬ 
ficance • of such commonly used terms as 
“ spirit of sal-ammoniac, spirit of salt, spirit 
of nitre, oil of vitriol,” and many other 
such. If properly informed, no member of 
the trade would use sulphuret of antimony 
when cinnabar is ordered. The latter name 
is only properly applied to an ore of mer¬ 
cury ; when made artificially it is called fac¬ 
titious cinnabar; when made from the re¬ 
sidue after distilling butter of antimony (the 
old process to which you refer! it was called 
cinnabar of antimony; but in either case it 
is a union of sulphur with mercury, not an¬ 
timony. Some years ago I elicited from 
the late Jacob Bell a confirmation of these 
views. 
I remain, 
A r our obedient servant, 
Geo. Cocking. 
Ltidlow, February *lth, 1870. 
Chlorodyne—Its Composition. 
Sir,—Will you kindly permit a few more 
words as to the Composition of Chlorodyne, 
in reply to my anonymous friend, a “ Fro - 
