] 22 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 17, 1872. 
scopes and philosophical instruments, spectroscopic 
prisms and microscopes. A very good collection. 
J. Spencer and Son, Dublin.— Philosophical 
instruments. 
O’Neill and Thompson, Dublin. —Surgical in¬ 
struments and appliances. 
M’Adam and Corcoran, Dublin.— Surgical ap- 
pliances. 
Dublin Glass Bottle Company. —Bottles and 
specimens of glass. 
Haines’ Patent Lead-Encased Block Tin Pipe. 
—Walker, Campbell and Co., Liverpool. For pre¬ 
venting lead-poisoning. Said to he the same cost 
as lead pipe of equal bore and strength. 
W. Rumsey, London. —Non mercurial plate pow¬ 
ders, chemical polishing paste, detergent powder, 
etc. 
Mr. G. P. Dodge, Dublin (Bermondsey India 
Lubber Works).—India-rubber in its various raw 
and manufactured states. 
Mr. A. Reekie. —Various polishes. 
Mr. D. Tallerman, London. —Various preserved 
meats, meat extracts, essences, etc. 
Mr. J. Tennant, J unior, London. —Specimen of 
minerals from Nova Scotia, St. Helena, and Algoa 
Bay, collected during the exhibitor’s travels in South 
Africa and other parts of the world. 
Anti-Adulteration Society, Dublin. —Specimens 
chiefly of substances used for adulterating, and some 
adulterated manures, etc. 
Mr. Thomas White, Dublin. —Charcoal “Pyro- 
lignite ” acetates of lime and soda, acetic acids, 
etc., produced from Irish grown timber. 
Mr. War. M artin, Dublin. —Various coloured 
inks. 
Messrs. Boyd and Alexander, Dublin. —Chloride 
of lime, salt-cake, sulphate of soda, commercial 
acids, and artificial manures. A good display. 
Dublin and Wicklow Manure Company.--—A 
very fine case, similar to the above. 
Messrs. Cantrell and Cochrane. —Mineral and 
medicinal waters. 
Messrs. McMasters and Hodgson, Dublin. —This 
firm is chiefly celebrated as oil crushers and refiners. 
They show fine specimens of linseed and rape oils, 
also the respective cakes and meals, fluid annatto, 
and some other proprietary articles. 
Mr. Marcus Tertius Moses, Dublin, shows a 
really fine collection of 60 different kinds of teas, 
with the locality marked. The teas of China, India, 
Assam and the Himalayas, Japan and Java, are 
shown, including even the Brick tea. 
JAPANESE WAX AND ITS EMPLOYMENT 
IN PHARMACY. 
BY DR. C. ROUCHER ; 
Pharmacien Principal de Premiere Classe. 
The vegetable wax, known under the name of 
Japanese or Chinese wax, is produced by the Rhus 
succedaneum. It is harder than ordinary wax, but 
much more fusible; the point of fusion indicated by 
various authors varying from 40° C. to 42° C. It is 
white, with a slightly yellowish tint, has a feebly 
rancid smell, and is more friable than beeswax. 
As this vegetable wax is now much used in phar¬ 
macy, the author has sought to determine the exact 
point of fusion, and for this purpose examined two 
specimens, which yielded exactly similar results. 
This he did by using very thin closed tubes, 15 milli¬ 
metres wide, in the lower third of which the substance 
was spread in a uniform layer. The tubes were 
then plunged into water at various temperatures, 
and the points noted of opacity, semi-transparence, 
complete transparence and running against the sides 
of the glass. 
The results obtained with the Japanese wax were 
as follows:—At from 40° C. to 45° C. the wax re¬ 
mained opaque, provided that the temperature was 
raised one degree at a time; from 45°C. to 50°C. it 
became more and more transparent, without becom¬ 
ing mobile ; at 53° C. it was transparent and nearly 
melted; at 54° C. it was completely fused. If the wax 
be rapidly raised to a temperature sufficiently above 
its melting-point, and, after cooling, be plunged into 
water at 42° C., it melts into a transparent liquid. So 
that this wax has two melting-points— 42° C. and 
54° C. —separated from each other by twelve degrees ; 
the highest being attained when the temperature is 
slowly and progressively raised. 
Japanese wax is not the only substance presenting 
such anomalies in fusion and solidification, since, 
according to M. Duffy, natural stearine under the 
influence of heat undergoes three distinct modifica¬ 
tions, which are produced in a similar manner by 
heating it beyond the melting-point and then cooling 
it. _ The same phenomenon is noticed in monomar¬ 
garine and the palmitines. 
To ascertain whether the wax operated on was 
constituted by a mixture of two or more substances, 
the separation of which might influence the pheno¬ 
menon of fusion, the author dissolved a portion of it 
in boiling 90° alcohol. Upon cooling, the greater 
part of the wax separated ; this, dried for some days 
in the open air, still contained a considerable quan¬ 
tity of water, which could be driven off’ by heat. De¬ 
prived of its water, it presented exactly the same 
points of fusion, 42° C. and 54° C., and comported 
itself between these two extremes in the same 
manner as that which had not been treated with 
alcohol. Beeswax offers nothing similar : two 
specimens, one white and the other yellow, melting 
at the single temperatures respectively, of 62’5°C. 
and 64° C. 
The introduction of Japanese wax into pharmacy, 
and its substitution for bees wax, suggested the follow¬ 
ing experiments as to the relations of the points of 
fusion of cerates prepared with these two substances, 
both being used in the proportion of ten parts of wax 
to thirty-five parts of olive oil. 
(1) Japanese Wax and Olive Oil. —At 30° C. it 
commenced to melt, but quickly stopped and be¬ 
came opaque and solid on the sides of the tube. 
From 32° C. to 45° C. the cerate, semi-transparent, 
ran slowly and sluggishly. At 46° C. it melted 
easily into a transparent mobile liquid. In this 
state if heated to 50° C., and after allowing it to 
spread in a thin layer and cooled, it was plunged 
into water at 32° C., it melted into a transparent 
syrupy liquid, accumulating at the bottom of the 
tube Raised again to 50° C. and placed in water 
at 30° C. it became transparent, but only ran slowly. 
Upon repeating the operation with water at 28° C. 
it became transparent, but did not run, and gradually 
resumed its opacity. Tliis showed that by the 
addition of the above proportion of olive oil to 
Japanese wax, its highest melting-point was lowered 
