894 
THE PHAEMACEUTICAL JOUENAL AND TEANSACTIONS. 
[May 10,1873. 
UNITED CHEMISTS AND DEUGGISTS’ 
SOCIETY OF IEELAND. 
The monthly meeting of this Society was held on 
Monday evening, at 12, Grafton Street. 
Mr. J. A. Eay was moved to the chair. 
The minutes of the last meeting were read and con¬ 
firmed, after which the honorary secretary (Mr. W, 
Hayes) read communications from members of the trade in 
Cork, Belfast, Armagh, Athy, Warrenpoint, etc., approv¬ 
ing the objects of the Society and offering their co¬ 
operation. 
Mr. C. E. C. Tichborne, Ph.D., F.C.S.L., M.E.I.A., 
was elected Honorary Member of the Society. 
The following gentlemen were elected Members :— 
Messrs. H. N. Draper (Bewley and Draper) and W. 
Dobbyn, Belfast.' 
. The following were elected Associates :—Messrs. Cot- 
tingham Walters, J. Beggs, and T. C. Kelly. 
After some discussion on certain letters which have 
appeared in the Pharmaceutical Journal, and other 
business, the meeting adjourned 
BEIGHTON ASSOCIATION OF PHAEMACY. 
At a meeting of the Brighton Association of Pharmacy, 
on Friday, May 2nd, at the Hanover Lecture Hall ; Mr. 
W. D. Savage, President, in the chair, the subject of 
Civil Service Trading was introduced for discussion by 
Mr. T. Higham. 
Having given Professor Eogers’s idea of cooperation, 
he endeavoured to show that trading, as carried on by the 
Civil Service servants at the present time, is not coopera¬ 
tion at all, as any friend can borrow a ticket and avail 
himself of its privileges. For many reasons he con¬ 
sidered the practice unjust to the ordinary retail trader, 
and he believed that similar principles of injustice applied 
to themselves would be stoutly resisted by them, but he 
hoped the time was not far distant when the very enviable 
salaries of the officers of the Civil Service would revert to 
the National Exchequer, and so be shared by the public 
at large. He then argued that the present system of intro¬ 
ducing proprietary articles was not desirable, as it tends to 
lower the standard of skilled labour by employing porters 
and errand boys in their production instead of properly 
qualified assistants. He regretted that the efforts of 
retailers to cope with these evils had not met with the 
success they deserved on account of a want of proper 
organization amongst themselves, and he proposed 
several remedies to meet the difficulty. 
In the discussion which followed Messrs. Savage, Barton, 
Armitage,. Ettles, W. H. Smith, and others took part. 
Civil Service trading was decidedly objected to because 
civil servants had many advantages over ordinary retailers, 
on account of their positions as servants of the State, so 
that retailers were very heavily handicapped in competi¬ 
tion with them. An opinion was also decidedly expressed 
that all cooperative stores ought to pay property and 
other taxes, so as to be placed on an equality with other 
trading bodies, and. not on a level with charitable 
societies. The question was also raised as to who would be 
responsible for cases of poisoning, etc., that might be 
expected to arise from the fact of their mixing up 
groceries, wine, and other trades with the very responsible 
duties of pharmacy. 
A hearty vote of thanks having been given to Mr. 
Higham, the Chairman called on Mr. W. H. Smith to 
exhibit a new Laboratory Gas Burner (Wallace’s Patent) 
which was shown to be capable of melting copper wire in 
the open flame, and by a small arrangement at the tap 
would produce a luminous, a Bunsen, or a kind of blow¬ 
pipe-flame at pleasure. 
The meeting then concluded by passing a vote of thanks 
to the Exhibitor. 
IPnrmtattjs .of jstimlifit Societies. 
CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
Thursday,1st May, 1873; Dr. Odling, F.E.S., President, 
in the chair. 
After the usual business of the Society had been trans¬ 
acted, three memoirs were read. The first, by Dr. H. 
Sprengel, “ On a new class of Explosives,” gave an account 
of some new explosives, consisting of two liquids inexplo¬ 
sive by themselves, but which when mixed and fired with 
a detonating charge, are as effective as nitroglycerine. In 
the discussion which ensued Professor Abel, of the Eoyal 
Arsenal, Woolwich, drew attention to the great difference 
produced by variations in the mechanical state of the 
explosive. The other papers were “ On Zirconia,” by Mr. 
J. B. Hannay, and “A Note on Pyrogallate of Lead and 
on Lead Salts,” by Mr. W. H. Dewing. 
The meeting was finally adjourned until Thursday, the 
15th May, when a lecture “On Isomerism” will be de¬ 
livered by Dr. H. E. Armstrong. 
PAEIS SOCIETE DE PHAEMACIE. 
Hydrochlorate of Trimethylamine. 
At the meeting of this Society on the 2nd April, M. Petit 
said that in operating upon twenty-five litres of herring- 
brine he had obtained 30 grams of hydrochlorate of trime¬ 
thylamine and 45 grams of chloride of ammonium. An 
estimation of the chlorine had given 37 per cent., a quan¬ 
tity agreeing with that required by theory; whilst the 
chlorhydrate obtained by M. Wurtz in decomposing iodide 
of tetramethylammonium by lime gave 53 per cent., a 
figure corresponding with the formula of hydrochlorate’of 
monomethylamine. 
M. Wurtz said that in the reaction of lime upon tetra 
methylammonium the three compound ammonias are pro 
duced, and certainly trimethylamine. 
.M. Guichard exhibited some large crystals of benzoic 
acid produced by the slow action of sulphide of carbon 
upon benzoin, and suggested that sulphide of carbon 
might present some advantages in the purification of 
resins. 
Dr. de Vry remarked that there were some resins which 
were not dissolved by sulphide of carbon, instancing that 
of Podocarpus cvpressina. 
Estimation of Cinchonas. 
Dr. de Vry communicated some, new results obtained 
by M. Oudemans, Professor at the Ecole polytechnique of 
the Netherlands, respecting the variations in the rotatory 
power of an active substance being dependent upon the 
vehicle in which it is dissolved. Thus cinchonidine, which 
rotates a beam of polarized light to the left, manifests a 
very varying degree of energy, according to whether it is 
dissolved in absolute or dilute alcohol. The same is the 
case with cinchonine, the dextrogyrous power of which 
varies between rather wide limits, according as it is dis¬ 
solved in alcohol or chloroform. In making comparative 
experiments upon the same body, therefore, it would be 
necessary always to employ the same solvent. Dr. de Yry 
also alluded to some unsatisfactory results he had obtained 
with various cinchonas, in the estimation of sulphate of 
quinine by the process recently published by M. Carles,— 
a cinchona which by the usual process yielded 8 per cent, 
of alkaloid, only yielding him 3’8 per cent, by M. Carles’s 
process. 
M. Vigier said that he had frequently adopted the pro¬ 
cess of M. Carles, and always with good results, and attri¬ 
buted Dr. de Vry’s want of success to some defect in the 
mode of operating. 
Dr. de Vry said that to determine the value of a cin 
