622 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
After some formal business, the President asked Dr. Carter if he had observed, or 
heard of any new facts with regard to chloral ? 
Dr. Carter said that it was being extensively used, and in large doses, but that the 
results obtained were not at all uniform, and it was evident that much careful investi¬ 
gation would be required before its effects could be relied on. 
A Member asked if a prescription containing poisonous drugs should be entered in 
the name of the patient or that of the messenger or person to whom the medicine was 
delivered ? The Act seemed to require the latter, but the practice was always to give 
the patient’s name. 
The President said that the question was one worthy of consideration, but that he 
could not give a positive reply to it. He then called attention to the new poison sche¬ 
dule, and regretted the great increase under the head of preparations. 
The Secretary spoke of the open way in which savin was sold by herbalists, and 
thought some action should be taken to prevent such sale. 
The President then called upon Mr. Charles Sharp to read a paper on u Two Cen¬ 
turies of Patented Inventions in Physic and Pharmacy.” 
“ In glancing over the specifications of the inventions in physic and pharmacy 
patented during the last two centuries, it is evident that the most useful discoveries 
never forced themselves upon the attention of the Patent Office. One looks in vain for 
chemical and other processes with which the names of eminent men are connected; for, 
as a rule, these have appeared in scientific journals, and have been handed over to man¬ 
kind without any restrictions. 
“ The earliest patented invention connected with the healing art was that of a ‘ move- 
able hydraulike,’ which caused ‘sweet sleepe,’ by moistening and warming the atmo¬ 
sphere of the sick-room, and by emitting ‘ sweete sounds.’ No draughtsman has had 
the courage to depict this machine, invented by Thomas Gfreut. It was, probably, a 
combination of a steam-chest and a musical-box, the effects of which upon a feverish 
patient may be more easily imagined than described. 
“The first chemical process was patented by one Thomas Moore in 1685, and was 
entitled, ‘ A way for makeing better allom and in a cheaper way than is used or ever 
was at any such work,’ etc. As T. Moore omitted to enrol his specification, there is 
now no saying what his process was. We can, however, judge of its usefulness from 
the author’s assertion that it was for the ‘public good, for medicinal, chirurgical, 
mettallick, and mineral improvements.’ About thirteen years after this, Nehemiah 
Grew patented his process for ‘ makeing the salt of purging waters perfectly fine in large 
quantities and very cheap,’ etc. In this case also no specification was enrolled. 
“ Besides these patents there are none recorded as having been taken out in the 
seventeenth century, which are not of the purest quackery. And it is not at all to the 
credit of the eighteenth century that the first medicinal patent registered in it was 
avowedly one of a quack preparation. The enterprising patentee, Timothy By field, was 
succeeded by other equally inventive minds, restless till they had furnished his Majesty’s 
subjects with patent medicines. Every page of the Patent Office Abstract contains a 
‘ specifick pill,’ a dropsy tincture, a ‘ Greek water,’ or an ‘ elixir;’ and as we go over 
these, we cannot but deplore the gullibility of human nature, as well as the fact, that 
the Government should have enriched itself by the registration of such abominable ab¬ 
surdities. It is a positive relief when, in the middle of the eighteenth century, we come 
to John Wilkinson’s invention of prepared medicated baths on frames, so that patients 
could float on the river Thames or elsewhere. Other medicated baths followed in which 
sick men were parboiled and dried, ridden upon a wooden horse, and rubbed with emol¬ 
lients and aromatics ; after which come wooden legs, and ‘ a process for making false or 
downy calves in stockings, a thing before never put in practice.’ Wandering through 
these early patents is profitless and weary labour. Impossible ingredients are intro¬ 
duced. Processes are complicated and drawn out in a variety of ways calculated to 
mystify the reader. Patentees used a language of their own, and the maker of abstracts 
is constantly obliged to resort to the use of inverted commas, in order to show the im¬ 
possibility of making sense of the specification. 
“It is, however, refreshing to find that soon after Mr. Ching patented his celebrated 
worm lozenges, the Patent Office had reason to alter its opinion of physic and the in¬ 
ventions relating thereto. 
