626 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[February 8,1873. 
PjtmMcfutrcal Journal. 
COMMENTARY ON THE PHARMACOPOEIA 
GERMANICA. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8 , 1873 . 
Communications for this Journal, and books for review,etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and, Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
IUDGE, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square , W.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London , TV. Envelopes indorsed il Pharm. Journ.” 
COUNTER PRESCRIBING. 
The following advertisement bears upon a ques¬ 
tion which occasionally threatens misunderstanding 
between the medical profession and ourselves :— 
“ Wanted. —Immediately, a young man, as dispenser 
to a surgeon with retail, capable of prescribing in simple 
cases, and able to extract teeth. Time for study allowed. 
Apply, by letter, stating salary, etc., or personally, be¬ 
fore eleven or after six p.m., to Dr. Hutton, 240, Citv 
Road, or 87, Lever Street.” 
Being inserted in the Pharmaceutical Journal, 
it must be taken to be addressed to pharmaceutists. 
Nor is it a chance evidence of an unusual state of 
things, for we all know that it is not uncommon for 
•dispensing surgeons in London and elsewhere to 
devolve a portion of their medical practice upon their 
non-qualified dispensers. The custom is no doubt 
convenient, and, if it is not abused, advantageous 
to the master and to the patients. But it follows 
that the same experience in the pharmaceutist’s pos¬ 
session must be available to be exercised in his own 
shop for the public accommodation, as well as to be 
hired out to the use of the surgeon. In both cases 
the same conditions must be observed, viz., that the 
“ prescribing ” should not exceed proper limits or 
go beyond “ simple cases.” 
If within such limits the practice is reprehensible, 
consistency demands that the profession should put 
n stop to it at home before they denounce it abroad. 
They altogether lose sight of the practicable when 
fliey call upon chemists to confine themselves rig idly 
do “the work of preparing drugs prescribed by 
others,” and prohibit the public from taking any 
.medicines except under medical prescription.* 0 
We may here note for the information of our 
.readers that another medical journal, the Doctor, 
has followed the British Medical Journal in de¬ 
nouncing as unjust the Globes “ rather silly assertion 
about the extortionate charges of druggists,” express¬ 
ing surpiise that it should have been adopted by the 
Medical Times apparently under a misunderstanding 
nt the question, and without giving pharmacists, as a 
body, credit lor the advances they have made The 
Doctor points out that, although the public is accus- 
fomed to amuse itself with good-natured smiles about 
the profits on medicines, it is generally known that 
the returns of chemists are so small that it would 
Be impossible to exist on the profits that would be 
In other trades, handsome. 
* Vide Lancet , Oct. 22nd, 1870. 
We have just received the first number of a new 
work by an author whose name is well known to 
pharmacists in this country as an eminent pharma¬ 
ceutical writer and commentator. A commentary 
on the German Pharmacopoeia by one so well quali¬ 
fied for the task as Dr. Mohr is known to be 
cannot fail to prove a valuable addition to phar¬ 
maceutical literature, which many of our readers 
will appreciate. The part of the work before us, 
consisting of 90 pages, treats of the vinegars, acids, 
and other articles up to “ aether ,” taken in the al¬ 
phabetical order in which they are described in the 
German Pharmacopoeia. The commentaries ap¬ 
pended to each of the pharmacopoeia processes and 
descriptions resemble, in their general scope, those 
given by the late Mr. Bichard Phillips in his 
‘ Translation of the London Pharmacopoeia.’ They 
contain the critical remarks and observations re¬ 
sulting from long practical experience of one of the 
most accomplished of modern pharmacists. The 
work is remarkably well printed and illustrated with 
numerous excellent wood-cuts. 
THE RISE AND FALL OF PHARMACEUTICAL 
PRODUCTS. 
The development and extended usefulness of some 
pharmaceutical products and the failure and loss of 
others are matters of interest for various reasons? 
especially as showing the real value for man’s bene¬ 
fit of the earth’s products, the more perfect test of 
their usefulness in the progress of science, and also 
sometimes of their failure through want of proper 
supplies consequent on the extinction of the plant 
in the country from which the sources have been 
drawn or from the fluctuations of trade. 
No better notion of the rise and fall of medicinal 
products can be obtained than by reference to the 
old Herbals and similar works on the subject of 
drugs, and by comparison of them with the pharma¬ 
copoeias and Materia Medicas which have connected 
those times with our own. The Herbals of Parkin¬ 
son and Gerard, the ‘ Compleat Histoiy of Druggs ’ 
by Pomet and other works of that character, are 
valuable as showing the state of knowledge in those 
days, but, on the other hand, wejear that when these 
books have fallen into the hands of unscrupulous 
traders on human credulity, they have been a ready 
means of supplying a vocabulary of quaint phrase¬ 
ology used to puff up quack nostrums. 
This subject has been indirectly touched upon in 
a recent article in a daily contemporary, wherein the 
value of modern science and its union with the pro¬ 
gress of the noble profession of medicine in our own 
times is compared with medical science in the old 
days. Certain it is that many more nasty drugs 
were used in those days than at the present time, 
