THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[January 11, 1873, 
£50 
The [remainder of the argument based upon the 
intrinsic value of the ingredients of the medicine, 
together with the cost of bottle, label, paper, 
string, sealing-wax and pill-box, as estimated for the 
Globe by “a competent authority ” is equally fallacious 
with that already referred to, as our readers will 
readily understand. But the remarkable feature of 
this is, the almost incredible meanness of the idea 
it conveys, according to which it might be contended 
that the value of George Eliot’s writings should 
be assessed at the same rate as that of the news para¬ 
graphs or, we might say, the articles of the Globe. 
It is remarkable that the above-mentioned esti¬ 
mate contains no reference to the value of the skilled 
labour employed in dispensing, nor to the fact that, 
irrespective of the cost of materials and of allowances 
for establishment expenses, a dispenser is in some 
degree entitiled to an honorarium for his skill and 
experience, just as the medical man is entitled to his 
honorarium for prescribing. This view of the case 
was well put by a “Chemist and Druggist” who replied 
to the article in the Globe , urging it upon the 
ground that the pharmacist has, like the medical 
practitioner, to undergo an examination in che¬ 
mistry, pharmacy, botany, materia medica and prac¬ 
tical dispensing before he can open a shop and 
carry on business for himself. But what will be 
thought of the competence of the writer in the 
Globe for criticizing the charges for dispensing, or the 
value of the services rendered in various ways by 
the qualified pharmacist, when we find him in an¬ 
swer to the letter above-mentioned, confessing such 
utter ignorance of the subject as is indicated by the 
following editorial note appended to this letter ? “It 
“ was certainly quite unknown to us that before a che- 
“ mist can open a shop he must have passed an exa- 
“ filiation. We have always understood that such 
“ ai * examination was purely optional.—Ed of 
Globe!!” 
mixture of fats containing those substances. Dr. 
Brown also added, in cross-examination, that he 
was quite confident that in the pure article there 
should be no stearin. 
Now, it is well known to chemists, as pointed 
out by Mr. Murphy, that butter consists of a mixture 
of fats comprising the common kinds of fat, viz., 
olein, stearin and palmitin, together with certain 
uncommon kinds, such as butyrin and caproin. 
So that, in fact, the reverse of Dr. Brown’s statement 
is true ; and it might be contended that the absence 
of stearin from a sample of butter would be strong 
evidence that it was not what it professed to be. 
The relative proportion of these different fats in 
butter is said, moreover, to be subject to variation. 
Hence there must be no little difficulty in pro¬ 
nouncing with certainty on the genuineness or other¬ 
wise of samples of fat alleged to be butter. We 
require to know to what extent real butter is liable 
to variation; and until this point shall have been 
determined, the chemical examination of butter can¬ 
not be placed on a scientific basis. 
One of the criteria insisted upon as a sign of 
sophistication is the requiring of a very large pro¬ 
portion of ether in order to effect complete solution. 
When this is the case, the fat is held to be too rich, 
in stearin, and to have been mixed with some fat 
which is not butter. It is a question whether a de¬ 
termination of the butyric acid obtainable from a 
specimen of fat would be a valuable datum; and we 
understand that Mr. Wanklyn is engaged in inves¬ 
tigating tliis point. A common malpractice in the 
trade is to cause butter to take up much water; and, 
as will readily be understood, the selling of water 
at the price of butter is highly remunerative. Good 
butter contains some 85 per cent, of pure dry fat; 
whereas some specimens of the article supplied to 
workhouses under the name of butter do not contain 
much over GO per cent, of fat. 
ADULTERATION OF BUTTER. 
Decent prosecutions at Liverpool have illustrated 
some of the legal difficulties which it has been fore¬ 
seen will arise whenever an attempt is made to 
enforce the provisions of the new Adulteration Act. 
They have also illustrated another difficulty, which 
might equally have been foretold, viz., the confusion 
in which the administrators of the law would be in¬ 
volved by the conflicting testimony of witnesses in 
reference to scientific and technical details. An 
instance of this is the case reported at p. 517 of this 
Journal. A provision dealer was summoned for 
selling adulterated butter, and Dr. Campbell Brown, 
D.Sc., the public analyst for Liverpool, stated in his 
evidence that a sample of the butter in question 
contained a quantity of stearin and palmitin, and 
that it was, therefore, largely adulterated by the ad- 
Mr. John James Bancroft, of Ruthin, Pharma¬ 
ceutical Chemist, and Local Secretary of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society, has been appointed Public 
Analyst for the county of Denbigh, under the Adul¬ 
teration of Food, Drugs, etc. Act. Mr. Bancroft was 
analyst under the old Adulteration Act. 
In t medical literature the new year has produced 
no less than three new competitors with the older 
journals. In England the Medical Record is to be 
issued weekly by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.; 
and the Students' Journal and Hospital Gazette , 
fortnightly, by Messrs. Bailliere, Tindal and Cox. 
The Irish Hospital Gazette is also to be issued 
fortnightly. 
