780 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 29, 1873. 
mixture at Gel. and Is., bottles of castor and cod-liver oil, 
and glycerine, and, in point of fact, drugs,. feeding-bottles, 
surgical appliances, and everything that is not contained 
in the schedules of the late Pharmacy Act, viz. about three 
dozen things which are not wanted once in a dozen times. 
Methinks I should hear him express his disgust with such 
a half law, and say it reminded him of a chair with no legs. 
However, whatever the Frenchman might say I will not 
venture to really decide; but of this I am convinced, that 
the Act has not, under my observation, done much good to 
either the public or ourselves, and I verily believe that the 
public are quite as much gulled as they were before the 
Adulteration Act: and with regard to the Poisons Act, I 
say that the individual who is bent on destroying his or her 
life will do it, and can, as the present law stands, easily, 
with laudanum as the Pharmacy Act stands. We qualify 
ourselves—for what ? simply for the sale of a few poisons, 
and just such other things in the shape of drugs as the few 
sensible public like to purchase, but what is more fre¬ 
quently the case, such things as they cannot get any cheaper 
at the other shops. Losing the sale of our drugs, alas! we 
lose nearly all; for prescriptions are generally, curious to 
say, done between half a dozen in each town or city of any 
size. The natural result follows ; we must either starve or 
sell pickles, sauces, whiting, red ochre, etc. I prefer the 
latter in self-defence, but I am anxious that this state of 
things should be ventilated, for in the majority of cases the 
vendor is not so much to blame as those who stand behind 
the scenes (I refer to the suppliers of the shopkeepers of 
pills without poison, Godfrey’s without opium, but henbane 
substituted). Away with such a hollow law! If the 
public are to be protected, and we are to be remunerated 
for protecting it, why not compel it to come to us for every¬ 
thing for medicinal use, internal or external. The Phar¬ 
macopoeia should be our standard; that is, I would restrict 
the sale of drugs and chemicals, or go further, and say, the 
contents of the B. P.—with the exception of half a dozen or 
so articles, as mustard, pepper, the soaps, lard, etc. I 
do not hesitate to say that, under the last-named circum¬ 
stances, I might make £100 more annually; and, alas! I 
am not alone; I am one of hundreds, I fear. We cannot 
go directly against one particular neighbour and get him 
fined for infringing the law, when often it is not his fault. 
Similar things exist in some of the London italian ware¬ 
houses. There ought to be some means whereby the local 
secretaries could act in giving information against offenders. 
The fact is, this state of things is so keenly felt by so 
many, that no stone ought to be left unturned to put a stop 
to it, or else we need expect to see very few at Bloomsbury, 
seeing that they can carry on a business nearly ours with¬ 
out any trouble. It only requires management. I only 
wish the Council would give this matter the same ventila¬ 
tion as pharmaceutical education has had from them. 
George Beale. 
Holderness Road, Hull. 
Pharmaceutical Women. 
Sir,—Having read the different letters on the above sub¬ 
ject, I must ask you to allow me to add my protest against 
women receiving any encouragement to enter the profession. 
Here in France it is very usual for the wife of the phar- 
macien to sit in the pharmacy to keep the books and take 
the money. I very much doubt whether any modest 
Englishwoman would like to be obliged to sit and see 
many things sold, and afterwards take the money for 
them, which it is usual for a chemist to keep in stock, and 
which are sold generally to men of not the highest moral 
character. Again, there are those customers who take us 
aside and ask a few minutes’ quiet talk with us; would 
any man like his wife to be a witness of those sort of 
things ? 
If women do come amongst us, I should advise all my 
collaborateurs not to take an appointment in a pharmacy 
in which there is a woman engaged. For my part I am 
determined never to take an appointment again in any 
pharmacy in which there is one, either in England or on 
the continent. 
Maurice de Lancy. 
2, Place Vendome, Paris, March 16th, 1873. 
Sir,—There have been a great many opinions with regard 
to ladies being admitted into our profession. Allow me to 
give you an instance of faithlessness in taking medicine, 
where the customer only thought a woman had made or 
helped to make up the mixture. A gentleman took his 
prescription to be dispensed by a pharmaceutical chemist, 
in a flourishing seaside town in Kent, where the wife of 
the chemist was wont to help her husband for some years, 
in the summer season, behind the counter. He waited for 
the same, and after some time elapsed, the wife came from 
behind the scenes (the dispensing department), presented 
the customer with his mixture and took the money for it; 
the gentleman, fearing the wife had had something to do 
with the manipulation thereof, had not the proper con¬ 
fidence in taking it, so went to another chemist to have 
the contents of the bottle thrown away and the prescription 
dispensed afresh. 
March 12th, 1873. J. B. 
Sir,—It is probable the new Council will have to decide, 
for a short period at least, the admission of women. Allow 
me to suggest, for the guidance of members in filling up 
the voting papers, that the words “for admission of wo¬ 
men” or “not for admission of women” be attached to the 
name of every candidate for the Council. 
If this cannot be done, perhaps you can make room in the 
Journal for the list with the above remarks. 
R. M. Atkinson. 
Leeds, March 21th, 1873, 
Tincture of Quinine. 
Sir,—Although we have heard upon distinguished au¬ 
thority that explanations are generally waste of time, I 
wish to excuse myself from the superficial error—attributed 
to me by Mr. Baldock—of so far mistaking the character of 
the constant deposit in tinct. quinine as not to distinguish 
between it and that which takes place only at low tempera¬ 
tures, and often after the lapse of many months. 
I had long noticed that this first deposition was not 
bitter and not appreciably soluble in proof or rectified 
spirit, therefore presumably not quinine; but after this has 
been filtered out a further separation takes place of what I 
still believe to be sulphate of quinine in the form of feathery 
crystals of very pretty appearance when the temperature 
falls sufficiently low. These crystals differ from the first 
deposit conspicuously in crystalline character and in being 
easily redissolved at the ordinary temperature of an inha¬ 
bited room. 
Mysterious remarks have been made as to the advantage 
of using a spirit composed of 5 parts rectified spirit and 
8 parts water for preparing tinct. quinine; but as this is 
the standard strength of proof spirit,—as proof spirit is 
officially directed for tinct. of orange, and tinct. orange is 
the basis of tinct. quinine,—the information is somewhat 
superfluous. Certainly it will not enable us to avoid the 
objection which in my previous letter I referred to as inhe¬ 
rent in officinal tinct. quinine. 
Richard W. Giles. 
Clifton, March 25 tlx. 
T. F. W. —The plant forwarded is Tnssilago Farfara. 
G. W. Taylor. —We are not certain as to the composition 
of the preparation referred to, but we know that in some 
parts of the country syrup of white poppies is supplied 
under the same name. 
E. W. B. —(1) Our acquaintance with the multitude of 
proprietary preparations is- not sufficient to enable us to 
answer your question safely. (2) You would probably 
obtain the information required from the Trade Mark Pro¬ 
tection Society, 18, King Street, Cheapside. (3) We know 
of no legal prohibition to the assumption of such a title 
by a registered chemist and druggist. 
G. Johnson. —We have forwarded to you the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Journal containing the original communication 
to which you refer, and you will see that the omission to 
give you credit for your suggestion occurred in the ab¬ 
stracting of the paper for the work in which it was repro¬ 
duced. 
Communications, Letters, etc., have been received from 
Mr. Ross, Dr. Wilks, Mr. H. J. Lutwyche, Mr. Groves, 
Mr. Proctor, Mr. Bessant, Mr. Symes, “ X. Y. Z.,” “ Re¬ 
gistered Chemist and Druggist,” “ Ignoratio,” “Lux.” 
