May 3, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
875 
by Mr. H. J. Parson, M.P.S., during the last week, and 
the competition for prizes resulted as follows :—Senior 
chemistry, Mr. D. P. Roberts; junior chemistry, Mr. J. T. 
Morley; senior materia medica, Mr. D. P. Roberts; junior 
materia medica, Mr. H. T. G. Wood. 
LEEDS CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
The sixth meeting of the present session was held in 
the Library, Church Institute, on Wednesday, March 
19th, 1873, Mr. R. Reynolds in the chair. 
The Chairman placed upon the table ‘ Pharmacopoeia 
Germanica,’ and ‘ Transactions of the American Pharma¬ 
ceutical Association.’ It was announced that the “Year- 
Book of Pharmacy ’ had been received as a donation to 
the library, and resolved that the thanks of the society 
be given to the Committee of the British Pharmaceutical 
Conference for the same. 
Mr. E. Brown gave a brief review of the published ‘ Pro¬ 
ceedings ’ of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 
remarking that the office of President of the Association 
was not without its toils as well as its honours, as this 
voluminous work testified, it becoming the province of the 
President to compile the transactions. The book is well 
and clearly printed, and is large for circulation to the 
members of an Association, numbering little over nine 
hundred. The Association seems to be very methodic in 
its operations, committees and sub-committees being 
appointed to each branch of its affairs; politico-pharmacy, 
commercial-pharmacy, scientific-pharmacy, and executive 
or shop-pharmacy, have each their organizations. Each 
state and city contributing to the association has or is 
its microcosm of the whole Union, in fact many pages of 
the * Proceedings ’ are but official reports of the routine 
of arrangements, and that to an extent we were not 
prepared to expect in our Transatlantic brethren; but 
when we come to the actual reports of meetings, it is 
manifest that however much system pervades the conduct 
of the American Pharmaceutical Association, there is all 
the energy and freedom of a vitalized body in their trans¬ 
actions. The long distances between the several centres 
of operation, and the keen distinctions perceptible to the 
American mind, are quite adequate to solve what appears 
like so much red tape ; but which, however cumbrous it 
may seem, bears useful fruit for the well-being of the 
constituency that organized it. 
The ‘ Proceedings ’ report some instances of careful 
and scientific research, but are much more largely com¬ 
prised of the results of practical observations and testings 
in regard to articles of every day use in the drug store 
and at the dispensing counter. The Americans suffer 
more even than we do from chronic inventopathy. 
“ Something new ” has charms with them more potent 
far than “ established ” remedies have with us, so that on 
their shelves there is a perpetual Sir Roger de Coverley 
in process,—the last but one of recent concoctions is 
already on the trams to the oblivious region of dead stock, 
having been displaced by the very last feat of ingenious 
admixture. 
The class of articles that takes the first place in this 
panorama-medicamenta is elixirs, preparations of the 
cordial kind, sweet, spirituous, aromatic, and medicated, 
contrived so as to gratify the palate rather than to benefit 
the patient. The proprietors of these compounds intro¬ 
duce them to medical men, who, prescribing them, so 
induce a demand on the pharmacist and hence on the 
proprietor. 
Much inconvenience arises from this oft introduction 
of new remedies, and the dispenser has not unfrequently 
to tax his ingenuity to devise a substitute for an article 
as foreign to his stock as might be the potions and per¬ 
fumes indulged in by the Grecian gods. There is a species 
of honesty, however, in this practice of substitution that 
merits commendation. The dispenser in such a case sends 
to the prescriber, acquainting him he is minus the 
article prescribed, and asks what is to be used in its 
place, or if the doctor is out of reach, he makes the best 
guess he can, and afterwards informs the doctor of the 
deed. Necessity, it has been said, has no law ; in these 
instances it may be said the rather to become law. The 
circumstances of the American pharmacist are in these 
affairs in many respects so unlike our own that we must 
not hastily condemn. To us, nevertheless, these practices 
carry a moral, on which each one may ruminate as 
experience suggests. 
Not inaptly following observations on new remedies, 
we have reports on the drug market, and here is named 
as a “ drug,” proprio nomine, condurango, that so recently 
was the golden balm, now lying in discarded parcels 
begging a customer. 
Professor Parrish’s remarks on pharmaceutical educa¬ 
tion are well worthy our regard. They bear on the value 
of a sound general education prior to technical instruction, 
and urge that, where practicable, an advanced education 
before entry on the duties of the drug store and laboratory 
will, in the long run, place its possessor at a great advan¬ 
tage, even where he runs to or through the last of his 
teens before he manipulates with the mortar or the 
retort. There is here support for not lowering the 
standard of our Preliminary examinations. At the same 
time, Professor Parrish was as well aware as any one in this 
country, of the difficulties in the way of what he saw to 
be so desirable, and because he saw these practical diffi¬ 
culties, he asserted that the advantages of a classic educa¬ 
tion in the drug trade can be had only by a favoured few. 
In the report of the committee on adulterations, our 
American friends make no suppression of names of the 
firms whence the examined articles are had,—a course we 
should not be ready to commend, one that, while it savours 
of open fairness, may be equally the cloak for much that 
is contrary to what is fair and open. In a very compre¬ 
hensive report on seidlitz powders, it becomes manifest 
that these powders are for the most part measured in 
America, and consequently that they differ much in 
weight. Their composition, however, proved more uni¬ 
form than might be expected, collected as they were from 
so many sources. 
Turning from American to British pharmacy, Mr, 
Brown commented on the getting up and merits of the 
‘ British Year-Book of Pharmacy,’ remarking that brief 
marginal notes or headings in some departments would add 
to its value as a book of reference. The book does not 
take the same position as the American. ‘ Proceedings,’ 
is not a report only of an association, so it must not be 
compared with it on like grounds; yet as a means of 
information, the ‘Year-Book’ is far the more comprehen¬ 
sive. He then directed special attention to articles in the 
‘Year-Book’ bn German opium, placing on the table a 
sample of English opium, produced in Kent; also, to 
articles on gum arabic, pepsine, tannin and glycerine, 
glyceroles of vegetable extracts, etc., commending the 
book to those present. In the course of his remarks, Mr. 
Brown referred to Messrs. Harvey and Reynolds’ manual, 
entitled ‘Notes on New Remedies,’ which, he said, was 
quite abreast of the times in the matters treated of. He 
then gave a formula for the preparation of tinct. aurant. 
recent., a sample of which he also exhibited, adding some 
observations on the desirability of there being other dilu¬ 
tions of spirit than proof spirit for pharmaceutical use. Mr. 
Brown also drew attention to the utility of the tragacanth 
and glycerine mucilage, recently noticed in the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Journal, and placed on the table samples.of 
the mucilage and of several emulsions formed by its admix¬ 
ture with cod liver oil, castor oil, almond oil, etc. 
An interesting discussion followed, in which Messrs. 
Reynolds, Teesdale, and others present took part and on 
the motion of Mr. Reynolds, seconded by Mr. Yewdall, 
the best thanks of the meeting were given to Mr. Brown. 
The seventh meeting was held in the Library, Church 
Institute, April 10th, 1873. The President, Mr. E. 
Brown, in the chair. The minutes of former meeting 
