414 
TI1E PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [November 23, 1372. 
were extremely acceptable as their book was not yet 
completed. 
After some business connected with the working of 
the association had been transacted, 
Mr. Druce read a paper on Chemistry, and the follow¬ 
ing note on Chlorate of Carbon:— 
“ Under the above rather sensational name a dark 
grey powder was sent for examination, which had been 
procured from New York for use in eclectic medicine. It 
appeared to be a mixture of a coarse white powder with 
some black substance, the mixture being very imperfect, 
patches of white powder being very plentiful, showing 
fhat a sieve had not been used in its preparation. Upon 
analysis it proved to be a mixture of chlorate of potash 
with about 10 per cent, of vegetable charcoal. As the 
price of this compound was twenty-one shillings per 
pound, an amount of profit almost equal to that on corassa 
was obtained by the person who prepared this ‘ elegant 
compound.’ ” 
A vote of thanks to Mr. Druce was passed, and the 
meeting terminated. 
CARLISLE CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
The first general meeting was held in the rooms of the 
association in Barwise Court, on Friday evening, the 
15th instant; Mr. Councillor A. Thompson, President, 
in the chair. 
The report of the committee having been read by the 
Secretary, Mr. W. Moss, was unanimously adopted. 
The President then called upon Mr. Hallaway, who 
proceeded to address the meeting as follows:— 
Gentlemen,—It having devolved upon me to deliver 
an address at this the first meeting of the Carlisle 
Chemists’ Association, I feel that I am not competent to 
deliver such an address as is worthy of the occasion ; but 
as some one must take the initiative in all such associa¬ 
tions, rather than it should not be done I have taken 
upon myself the responsibility. I beg of you that you 
will not look for nor expect anything great or grand, 
but look upon me as being one anxious to further the 
interests of pharmacy, and on what I shall say as an 
inducement and stimulus to our youths to acquire that 
knowledge which is essential, and without which it is 
impossible to carry on successfully our business. 
Nearly all trades and professions have either their unions 
or associations, the objects of which are chiefly to look 
after trade matters and to further and protect the interests 
of their respective trades or professions, and I trust that 
this association, which we are now met to inaugurate, 
will be the beginning of a new era in Carlisle ; that it will 
be the means of consolidating as a body the chemists and 
druggists of this town, and uniting us as it were into 
one friendly family. The medical profession of our two 
northern counties have their medical association, which 
association meets at stated periods, and at which meet¬ 
ings papers are read by members upon professional mat¬ 
ters, to the advantage and edification of the whole as¬ 
sociation, and without in any way detracting from the 
dignity of, or yet in any way interfering with the private 
interests of its individual members, but, on the contrary, 
uniting together the profession more closely. Such, 
I trust, _ will be the case with the Carlisle Chemists’ 
Association; its members have no private interests to 
serve more than to do that which they can to look after 
the interests of the trade as a whole, and in imparting 
and receiving information which in the end benefits the 
whole community. 
One of the objects of this association is to advance 
pharmacy, and as a means to that end, the committee 
propose there should be a monthly meeting for the read¬ 
ing of papers, whether original or extracted, the discus¬ 
sion ot subjects specially connected with the trade of 
pharmacy, and the bringing under the notice of its mem¬ 
bers new medicines. If each member will contribute a 
little of his time and experience, I believe we shall 
carry on the association successfully. I also trust that 
in the course of time we shall be able to have a museum 
and a library ; and in order to do this, the committee will 
thankfully receive anything in the shape of books or 
specimens for that purpose, so that the youths who may 
come to Carlisle to learn their business shall not have 
to complain of want of facilities for so doing, and also 
that they may be places of inference in pharmaceutical 
matters for the whole town. 
The other object of this association is for the mutual 
improvement of its members and the helping and stimu¬ 
lating of our apprentices to acquire a sound, thorough 
and practical knowledge of the higher branches of our 
business, so as to enable them in the first place to get 
through their examinations creditably, and, secondly, to 
fit them for filling the positions that may devolve upon 
them in the future with credit to themselves and honour 
to their old masters, an object which I am sure we all 
agree in and wish to promote. 
Pharmacy is a trade that demands a great degree of 
conscientiousness. Just think for one moment what very 
often depends on us,—an issue of life or death. What does 
it avail how clever our medical men are, or what amount 
of skill they may possess, or how long they may have 
anxiously considered and pondered over what is the best 
remedy to give, if their prescriptions are not accurately 
prepared in accordance with the wishes of the prescribers P 
And. it behotes us all, young and old, so to fulfil the im¬ 
portant duties that fall upon us, that the profession may 
have confidence in our skill and conscientiousness, and 
that the public may rely upon us doing our duty faith¬ 
fully. Here I would bring before the masters the neces¬ 
sity of so conducting their businesses,—I refer especially 
to the preparing and dispensing of medicines, taking the 
pharmacopoeia as their guide and standard,—that a youth 
may have always clearly set before him the duty of a 
pharmacist to prepare and send out medecines in con¬ 
formity with the instructions of the Pharmacopoeia and 
the wishes of the prescriber; and may learn to have a 
horror of secret formulae. By secret formulae I mean the 
formulae that are used when nostrums are prepared, 
such as preparing vin. ipecac, with spirit; the constant use 
of concentrated infusions and decoctions for fresh, and the 
use of half-and-half (spirit and water) for the true proof 
spirit, 5 of spt. and 3 of water ; and a host of other abuses 
that I am afraid still retain their old places up and down 
the country,—bringing to my mind -what a friend in the 
drug trade once told me, that he thought in old times when 
he was an apprentice, the thing was not how to make 
things properly, but how not to do it. The apprentice 
should be taught that he ought not to think how prepara¬ 
tions can be cheaply made, but how they can be best 
made, and that he has a duty to perform that requires a 
great amount of conscientiousness. 
Pharmacy, in its earliest ages, was in the hands of 
the physicians, who professed the healing art in all its 
branches, and prepared their medicines themselves, or 
superintended the preparation of them. I should 
neither like to make nor superintend such messes as were 
made in the period referred to ; and I wonder what the 
youths here present would think if we set them to work 
upon such things as the fat and grease or suet of a 
duck, goose, eel, boar, heron, dog, capon, beaver, wild 
cat, stork, hedgehog, hen, man, lion, hare, kite, wolf, 
mouse of the mountain, hog, serpent, badger, beai’, fox, 
vulture, album graecum, east and west bezoar, stone 
taken out of a man’s bladder, viper’s flesh, the brain of 
hares and sparrows, the rennet of a lamb, kid, hare, and 
a calf, and a horse too ; the excrement of a goose, of a 
dog, of a goat, of pigeons, of a store horse, of swallows, 
of men, of women, of mice, of peacocks, etc. ? What I 
have just read form a portion of the remedies enumerated 
in the Pharmacopoeia of 1653 ; the science of medicine 
was so little understood, and so imperfectly cultivated, 
