ebruary 1, ISC'S.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL] JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
vantages should not he dwelt upon so much as the 
measure by which the value of the Major qualification 
is to be gauged, but that its possession should be 
regarded as affording evidence that the holder is 
engaged in carrying out the good work of pharma¬ 
ceutical improvement inaugurated by the founders 
of the Society, and is thereby entitled to the good¬ 
will and esteem of his brother pharmacists, as well 
as to the respect of the medical profession and the 
public. 
LANCET CHEMISTRY. 
In the Lancet of last w r eek we read of a wonderful 
chemical discovery. Another new ether! “ Light 
ether ”—-par excellence , as the Lancet says—“ consists 
of four atoms of carbon, ten of hydrogen, and one 
of oxygen.” Our learned contemporary adds, “ as 
compared with hydrogen, its vapour-density is 30.” 
Persons who are familiar with the Lancet will not 
be very much surprised to note that the ether con¬ 
sisting of “ four atoms of carbon, ten of hydrogen, 
and one of ox} T gen,” is our ver} r old acquaintance 
the common sulphuric ether (C 2 LI 5 ) 2 0 (ethylic ether). 
Nor need they be much astonished to learn that the 
vapour-density as compared with hydrogen is 30, 
inasmuch as the correct number is only 37. Re¬ 
specting the wonderful compound in question, our 
worthy contemporary further remarks, the tem¬ 
perature of the human body suffices to make it boil 
violently, as may easily be tested by putting a small 
quantity of it on the head.” Our contemporary had 
evidently done so. 
THE CALENDAR FOR 1873. 
An advertisement in another part of this Journal 
announces that the new Calendar of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society is now ready. Many of our readers 
are acquainted with the nature of the matter con¬ 
tained in editions of former years, and to them it 
will be sufficient to say that the Calendar for 1873 
has been carefully corrected and modified so as to 
supply information of the most recent date. To 
those who are not familiar with the Calendar, we 
may say that, besides the lists of persons connected 
with the Society, it contains the Amended Regula¬ 
tions of the Board of Examiners, which are to come 
into force in 1874 ; the new regulations for the Jacob 
Bell Memorial Scholarships after the next competi¬ 
tion ; and extracts from all Acts of Parliament and 
other regulations in which chemists and druggists 
are specially and practically interested. An invest¬ 
ment of the small sum annually charged for this 
publication would often save much anxiety and 
doubt, and frequently avoid the more lengthy pro¬ 
cess of appealing to our correspondence column. 
613' 
THE CHARGE FOR DRUGS. 
In pursuance of the principle on which we have 
before published quotations from the daily news¬ 
papers, we have much pleasure in directing the at¬ 
tention of our readers to the following extract from a 
recent number of the Echo, as affording evidence 
that although the dictates of common sense and 
British love of fairness are, in some exceptional in¬ 
stances, disregarded and sacrificed to the desire for 
producing sensation at any cost, those qualities still 
prevail among the conductors of the public press :— 
“ A great deal has been made lately of the very simple 
fact that you can buy a simple bottle of physic at a 
lower price in one part of the town than in another, 
and the chemists and druggists have been held up al¬ 
most as rogues because of this well-known circumstance. 
A correspondent reproaches us for taking no part in the • 
outcry. AYe will state generally our reasons for not 
doing so. In the first place, we think, as a rule that 
tradesmen have a right to make what charges they" 
find for their own advantage. The proper and suffi¬ 
cient check against a system of over-charge is free trade 
and unrestricted competition. If we found the chemists 
adulterating drugs, our anger against them would be 
far more severe than any that has been exhibited. 
But to treat the members of this highly-skilled and 
intellectual trade as mere dwilers in drugs is very ab¬ 
surd. A chemist who lives in a neighbourhood where 
the poor get all or nearly all their medicines from 
public hospitals and dispensaries, who is not called upon 
to keep the most costly drugs, nor those of the best 
quality, or in the best condition, where the resident 
doctors dispense their own medicines, of course, does a 
business very different in character, and requiring far 
less skill, than one whose whole time, as is the case- 
with most of the leading chemists in the AYest End, is 
in great part occupied in acting, we may say, as the 
physician’s assistant in the nicest possible operations^ 
with drugs, when life or death is but the matter ot 
a half grain. To regard men who have such duties 
continually in hand as mere retail dealers in rhubarb 
and castor oil is only less ridiculous than to complain of 
Sir AA r . Gull for charging fifty guineas for a visit when 
the parish doctor can be had for as many pence.” 
AYe have also especial pleasure in coupling with 
the foregoing another extract, from the British 
Medical Journal, inasmuch as it realizes our anti¬ 
cipation that the representatives of the medical pro¬ 
fession would not fail to repudiate and condemn the 
abusive, inconsiderate and unfounded charges in 
which the Lancet has recently indulged, and against 
which we regret having had occasion to protest:— 
“It is not surprising that persons who have no tech¬ 
nical knowledge of the subject should fall into absurd 
errors in discussing such a question as the charges of 
druggists for dispensing medicines; but it is unfortunate- 
thafthose wdio have better information, and should be 
able to frame a more trustworthy judgment, should 
follow them in their errors. A writer in a daily paper 
has discovered that he can get a prescription dispensed 
far more cheaply in Mile End than in Mayfair ; and a 
medical paper follows the popular lead in exclaiming 
that this is very sad and a proof of extortion. In the 
first place, the same may be said of herrings or pota¬ 
toes, or of boots or trousers. The _ expenditure ot a 
AYest End druggist to meet the requirements oi a. rnoro 
wealthy and fastidious clientele, is on a very difterent 
scale from that of the small druggist of the back stiects.^ 
Even on the ground of ordinary trade-diffcrencc3 ot 
