September 28, 1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
!o5 
* # * No notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions, Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act. 
Sir,—The “ Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act ” passed 
last month provides that persons to be appointed as analysts 
must be possessed of “ competent medical , chemical and micro¬ 
scopical knowledge.” 
The word “medical ”was also in the Act last year, and 
attention was called to it, I think, sir, by yourself, in the 
Journal. I communicated at the time with the members 
representing the town in which I live, and they gave notice 
of an amendment to have the word altered or omitted, sending 
me down the printed clause as they proposed it should stand, 
which would have been quite unobjectionable, After all, 
however, the word has crept in again this year. 
As a rule, I venture to say that a man who is a pharma¬ 
ceutist, and possesses, as many do, the requisite chemical 
and microscopical knowledge, is much more fitted to be an 
analyst under this Act than most medical men, but is he 
'legally eligible ? I am afraid that he is not, and if this be 
so, has not the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of the 
Pharmaceutical Society been caught napping ? 
There are a good many pharmaceutists interested in this 
matter, and I think it would be well if the Council ascertained 
from their legal adviser exactly how we stand. 
Pharmaceutist. 
Pharmaceutical Chemists and Members of the 
Pharmaceutical Society. 
Sir,—J. L. is not the only person who protests against ad¬ 
mitting registered chemists to be members of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society by payment. I consider it would be a step 
in the right direction to discontinue granting membership 
to any except those who pass the Major. 
A complaint has been made that few present themselves 
for the Major degree. If the practice now condemned be 
continued, will preparing for the Major be of use to any one ? 
The public do not, or will not know the difference between 
the Major and the borrower of his plumes. Moreover, the 
Major gets no substantial recompense either from the 
medical profession or the public. 
I could show that the Major degree is at present useless, 
but perhaps I need not. 
Professor Attfield, some time since, stated that the Bell 
Scholarships profited, any profession but that of pharmacy; 
and the same may be said of the Majors,—many of whom 
even if they go into business leave it for another. 
Although the Society may have got a larger return by the 
adoption of the practice complained of, yet, by the same 
means, she has been drained of her best blood—her best men 
have left her. 
The claims of the Majors upon the Society are very great, 
perhaps greater than those of the apprentices now entering. 
For the former have been induced to w T ork hard, to invest 
much capital, to think highly of their calling; and for what? 
Nothing worth the labour and money expended. 
The Majors ought to be a body of chemists well known to 
the public—as distinct as physicians are from surgeons 
instead of being totally disregarded by the Society. Many 
means might be suggested, not only of keeping the Major, 
but also of improving his position. The Major on leaving 
Bloomsbury Square and commencing business generally 
buries his talents under [a bushel. This should not bo; and 
as I believe it to be the duty of the Society to encourage 
her past students I suggest that the Society institute a series 
of money prizes for the Majors in business. That the prizes 
be substantial and remunerative, and be given for original 
investigations or compositions on subjects connected with 
any branch of pharmacy. We are behind hand in this 
.country in such a matter. 
A Major in Business. 
Disinfectants and Antiseptics. 
S r,—When discussing this subject in your impression of 
August 31st, you justly expressed regret that there was no 
ex cathedra utterance as to the true merits or demerits of 
chloralum as a disinfectant. The chief difficulty in obtaining 
such utterance would appear to me to lie in settling the value 
of the qualifications of the occupant of the oracular chair. 
It is to be presumed, for instance, that to many, the utterances 
of the ‘ British Medical Journal ’ are of cathedral importance. 
Nevertheless, on the very same day whereon you published 
your remarks, that periodical, relying on a statement of Mr. 
Stanford, that “ Chloride of calcium is the most practicable, 
cheap and powerful of all disinfectants,” favoured tho pro¬ 
posal to introduce £200,000 worth of that substance into the 
London sewers, with the object of preventing the evolution of 
sewer gases ! This is the result of the combined wisdom 
of a pharmacist and a medical editor ! 
Such ex cathedra utterances would certainly be no im¬ 
provement on the resolutions of the Board of Trade relative 
to disinfectants. The latter body, when the Shipping Medical 
Scale of 1867 was drawn up by them, ordered carbolic acid 
to be the only disinfecting substance on it, although it was 
well known that, owing to its peculiar odour, it was so little 
suited for trading vessels, that many shipowners made a rule 
of refusing to take it on board, even on freight. Urged, 
however, by the Shipowners’ Association to substitute some 
inodorous substance for the offensive carbolic acid, the Board 
at length ordered the addition to the Medicine Scale of 
chloride of zinc. But after a year or two they suddenly dis¬ 
covered that the latter substance, on account of its poisonous 
character, was too dangerous to be longer retained in the 
Scale—not seeming to be aware that carbolic acid, which still 
occupied, and even now occupies, the place of honour on the 
Scale, was quite as deadly a poison—and not having appa¬ 
rently sufficient knowledge to think of anything better, and 
being no doubt importuned by the publicity department of 
the Chloralum Company, thereupon directed it to be dis¬ 
placed by the preparation of tbe latter concern. Neverthe¬ 
less, foolish as all this is, it is wisdom itself when compared 
with the chloride of calcium propos.il of the ‘ British Medical 
Journal.’ 
One of the Laity. 
ILondon, September 4<th. 1872. 
[*#* We are glad to insert the above letter, but take leave 
to demur to some of the statements contained therein. In 
the first place it was not so much the absence of ex cathedra 
utterances as to the value of chloralum that we deplored, 
as the absence even of that too readily attainable recommen¬ 
dation. The ‘British Medical Journal’ is doubtless per¬ 
fectly competent to take up cudgels as to the “ Chloride of 
Calcium” question, but as a matter of fairness in quotation, 
we must point out that the favouring of the proposal by our 
contemporary was distinctly subject to the proviso “ if the salts 
were as effectual as Mr. Cooper imagines them to be.” Lastly, 
the Shipowners’ Association or the public have as yet failed 
to prove that carbolic acid injures either the cargo, the gear, 
or the hull of a ship, if the acid be properly packed and 
secured, and used as directed in the ‘Medical Guide.’ The 
solution of chloride of zinc was not, according to our own 
knowledge and belief, restored to the Scale on the petition of 
the Shipowners’ Association, audit is very properly considered 
more dangerous than carbolic acid, because it is colourless 
and inodorous.— Ed. Pharm. Journ.] 
Displacement. 
Sir,—After the reading of Messrs. Stoddart and Tucker’s 
paper at Brighton, a discussion took place (as reported in your 
Journal of Saturday the 14th) which turned chiefly on the sub¬ 
ject of preparing essence, or strong tincture of ginger. It is a 
well-known fact that when the essence is displaced with 
■water after the process has proceeded a short time, it stops, 
and even sleeping over it, as suggested by Mr. Stoddart, does 
not surmount the difGculty. A magma or “ muck (as Mr. 
Giles terms it) is formed, which it is presumed stops the pro¬ 
gress of the water—but does it ? The two following obser¬ 
vations rather shake one’s faith in this orthodox belief 1st, 
The displacement proceeds pretty rapidly at first, until the 
“ brown ring ” mentioned has thoroughly formed. 2nd, It 
you remove the “muck ” with a spoon and place it in another 
percolator, water will pass through it there. _ 
The fact then is evident—it is the brown layer, consisting 
