872 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
act mechanically, and always use the eyes 
when reaching a bottle down, whether it 
be a poison or not. 
I have long ceased to keep my bottles m 
the exact alphabetical order in which I first 
arranged them,—an arrangement which 
placed side by side two such associates as 
tinctura opii and tinctura rhei. I just took 
out the tinct. opii and changed places with 
the tinct. aurantii, and have telt very much 
more comfortable since. 
A gentleman at the meeting, in speaking 
of the burthen of the Council’s regulations, 
asked if they would affect apothecaries and 
medical men. Of course they do not; but 
if I may judge from two surgeons’ labels 
w T hich have lately come into my hands, they 
are a trifle more particular than we were 
inclined to give them credit for in matters 
of dispensing. 
The two labels are the following, the first 
of which I think will be quite a novelty to 
most of your readers; and the second,. to 
my mind, is a very sensible label, knowing 
as I do, that a large number of physic-takers 
manage to swallow eight doses of physic at 
five or six times. 
PURGATIVE MEDICINE. 
spoonfuls every 
hours till it operates. 
(Keep the medicine very cold, away from the 
fire, and out of the sunshine.) 
This mixture must be carefully measured. 
The bottle contains doses. 
I am, dear Sir, 
Your obedient servant, 
Joseph Lucas. 
Birmingham, May 19 th, 1870. 
Homoeopathic Medicines. 
Hear Sir,—Being myself an allopathic 
chemist, with no faith in homoeopathy, and 
yet guilty of selling homoeopathic medicines, 
I beg to offer a few observations on Mr. 
Giles’s second letter. Although I have no 
faith in homoeopathy I must frankly admit 
that I have seen, amongst the circle of my 
own private acquaintances, several cases in 
which the ailment from which the patients 
have been suffering has disappeared, whilst 
they have been taking homoeopathic medi¬ 
cines, in such a way that had they been 
taking allopathic remedies every allopath 
w'ould have ascribed their recovery to the 
virtue of the medicine they had taken. 
Several times customers who have noticed 
the case of homoeopathic medicines on my 
counter have asked what my opinion of 
homoeopathy is? and my reply has always 
been that I have no faith in it myself, but 
that I am ready to supply those who believe 
that they derive benefit from homoeopathic 
remedies. Most certainly I do not feel the 
traffic in homoeopathy to be, as Mr. Giles 
suggests, “inexpressibly painful,” neither 
do I feel it to be in any way “ a degrada¬ 
tion” to myself or to my calling. If I saw 
that a homoeopathic customer was seriously 
suffering for want of more potent remedies, 
I should most strenuously recommend him 
to resort to allopathic treatment, and I have 
done so, but so long as my homoeopathic 
customers seem to be none the worse for 
their adherence to homoeopathy I hesitate 
not to supply them with homoeopathic re¬ 
medies, and I consider myself perfectly jus¬ 
tified in carrying on a traffic in homoeopathy 
upon such principles. I believe that homoeo¬ 
pathic globules will do no harm, even if they 
do no good, and that is more than can be 
said for many of those recipes handed down 
from one to another, which we have all met 
with, and which Mr. Giles and his assistants 
would probably dispense if brought to his 
establishment. I don’t mean to insinuate 
that Mr. Giles would prepare the more vil¬ 
lainous of these compounds, but I think 
there are many English receipts which are 
by no means innocuous, and yet would be 
prepared by Mr. Giles, although he so 
strongly condemns allopaths for vending 
the harmless homoeopathic globules. 
Mr. Giles has never known bread-pills 
prescribed, but his remarks seem to imply 
that he considers if they were ordered, such 
a prescription should be dealt with in the 
same way as he would deal with an order for 
homoeopathic globules. I have never my¬ 
self seen a prescription for bread-pills, but 
some years ago I dispensed a mixture from 
a Latin prescription which contained nothing 
but saccharum ustum and mistura cam¬ 
phor se. This is unquestionably an analo¬ 
gous case. The patient came repeatedly for 
a supply of this mixture, and if he had not 
progressed favourably I should most cer¬ 
tainly have told him faithfully that the mix¬ 
ture he was taking could not possibly do 
him much good, but as he gradually got 
better I just dispensed the prescription, and 
made no remarks upon it, leaving it to the 
prescriber to be the best judge as to whether 
his patient really needed active remedies or 
not. 
In replying to Mr. Marshall’s letter, Mr. 
Giles disowns Morrison’s pills, but admits 
that he does sell Parr’s pills, etc. Now I 
doubt not but Mr. Marshall w'ould agree 
with me, that his arguments would not be the 
least impaired by substituting Parr’s pills for 
Morrison’s pills, and, as Mr. Giles virtually 
admits dealing in Parr’s pills, the validity 
