898 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 10, 1873. 
analysed it with the following result :—Specific gravity 
of milk, 1024 ; cream, 3'8 ; total solid per 1000, 84‘0 ; 
fat (butter), 14*6 ; casein (cheese), 23 = 37 6 ; sugar, 
39*2; salts, 7'2 = 46 , 4. 
Mr. Ricketts, in both cases, submitted that the milk 
was known as skim milk, and that, though the cream was 
lemoved, that was not an adulteration. He further con¬ 
tended that the defendant had not fraudulently increased 
the bulk of the milk for the purpose of defrauding the 
purchaser. 
Mr. Barker asked if this case was not similar to one he 
•dismissed, in which the Vestry of St. Luke’s were the 
prosecutors. 
.Mr. Ricketts said it was, for then it was shown that the 
milk sold was known as skim milk. 
Mr. Barker said that since the case was first before him 
iie had paid particular attention to it, and he came to the 
conclusion that he could not convict. What the inten¬ 
tion of the legislature was it was not for him to say, 
but he must deal with the case as it stood. By the 
3rd section he found that any person who should sell 
any article of food or -drink, or any drug, knowing 
the same to have been mixed with any other substance 
with intent fraudulently to increase its weight or 
bulk, and who shall not declare such admixture to 
•any purchaser thereof before delivering, to be the same 
and no other, shall be deemed to have sold an adulterated 
article of food, or drink, or drug, as the case may be, 
under this Act. Construing these words literally and 
strictly, as he was bound to do, he did not think he 
should do right in convicting the defendant. He then 
•dismissed the summons. 
Mr. Layton said that after that judgment he should 
have to ask for a case for the decision of the judges in the 
superior courts. 
Mr. Barker said that for the present he should not 
grant a case, but Mr. Layton could, if he pleased, apply 
in writing, as the Act laid down. 
On Saturday, Mr. Layton again appeared before Mr. 
Barker, and said that he had to ask for a case, and he 
now formally put in his reasons for so doing. The 
case was applied for in consequence of a resolution of 
the Vestry, passed on Friday night, the Vestry having 
determined, should the decision of Mr. Barker be upheld 
hy the court above, to consider the Adulteration of Food 
Act a dead letter, and at once to discharge their analyst 
•and inspectors and refuse to put the Act in force. At 
the meeting of the Vestry on Friday night it was stated 
that the Adulteration Act had been passed on the ground 
that the vestries had failed to use the permissive laws 
previously in existence, and now the legislature had 
given them an Act which, should Mr. Barker’s decision 
Be upheld, would be perfectly useless to them. If the 
law as laid down by his worship was to be carried out the 
Vestry felt that they should be acting in the dark. If 
the Act was not to be carried out, or if it had not given 
the court power enough, then it was not worth the paper 
it was written upon. 
Mr. Barker remarked that this was not the first Act that 
was not worth the paper it was written upon. 
Mr. Layton referred to the first Act of Parliament, 
in which the word “pure” was used, and he contended 
that both Acts of Parliament bore on the case. The 
court had held with Mr. Ricketts that because the cream 
was taken away from the milk that it was milk still, and 
that it was not adulterated ; but his contention was that 
reducing the strength of any article was an adulteration 
within the meaning of the Act. 
Mr. Barker said he had decided the case on the facts 
as submitted to him in the evidence, and had decided that 
there had been no ingredient added fraudulently to increase 
the weight or the bulk of the article sold. 
Mr. Layton said he might refer the magistrate to the 
case of cinnamon. There was a process in existence by 
which all the good of the spice might be extracted, and 
then the remainder was sold as chips, there being no 
goodness left in it. He further contended that the pre¬ 
sumption of the Act was that if any person went into a 
shop to purchase an article, lie was bound to get what he 
asked for, and that in a pure, unadulterated state. 
Mr. Barker said he would not discuss the matter 
further then, nor would he then grant the case. He 
would look through the evidence, and give his decision 
next week .—From the Echo and Standard. 
Journal of the Chemical Society : with Abstracts of 
Chemical Papers published in other Journals. Van 
Voorst. 1872. 
The bulky volume now before us is something more 
than the journal of a learned society. It contains, in¬ 
deed, the transactions of the Chemical Society, with all 
the papers and lectures read before it, but it also presents 
us with a tolerably adequate account of a year’s progress 
in chemistry in the world at large. It is now rather 
more than two years since the Chemical Society com¬ 
menced the task of publishing abstracts of all the original 
papers bearing on chemical science which appeared in 
English or foreign periodicals. Dr. Williamson, then the 
president of the society, was, we believe, the leader of 
the movement. It appeared to him, and to many other 
English chemists, that it would conduce much to the ad¬ 
vancement of science if those engaged in scientific work 
could be supplied as early as possible with a condensed 
account of the original papers published in our own and 
foreign journals. Every branch of science now-a-days 
progresses with such rapid strides, and results are so 
voluminous, and they appear in so many languages, that it is 
only with the greatest difficulty that either the teacher, 
the investigator, or the manufacturer can keep abreast of 
modern discoveries and improvements. This difficulty 
presses especially on Englishmen. It is no use being 
blind to the fact that the greater part of scientific work 
is done on the Continent. For one original investigation 
published in England probably ten appear in Germany 
and France, and these foreign papers are quite inaccessible 
to most English readers. In Germany the necessity of 
collating the scattered publications of scientific work has 
long been recognized; their painstaking ‘ Jahresbericht,’ 
giving short abstracts of the papers of each year, is a work 
well known. But the volumes necessarily appear so 
long after the date of the papers which they report, that 
they furnish rather a past than a contemporaneous history. 
We may feel proud, then, that our own Chemical Society, 
by its issue of monthly abstracts, is at the present time 
supplying more complete and useful reports of chemical 
science than have hitherto been produced. 
The volume before us is made up of the bound monthly 
numbers of the past year, and is furnished with a copious 
index both to authors and subjects. The papers and lec¬ 
tures read at the meetings of the Society are many of them 
of great interest; in addition to these we have in this 
volume about eleven hundred abstracts of papers which 
have appeared in other journals. We have examined the 
volume somewhat carefully, and find that nearly forty 
periodicals are regularly abstracted, and as some of these, 
from the second references given, evidently republish 
papers from other periodicals, the extent of literary surface 
which comes under contribution is even more extended 
than at first appears. The periodicals drawn from are 
German, French, Italian, American, and English; the first 
two largely predominating. The matter is very methodi¬ 
cally arranged. First comes the section of physical che- 
mistry, then inorganic, mineralogical, organic, animal 
physiology, vegetable physiology and agriculture, ana¬ 
lytical, and technical. The titles of the sections suffi¬ 
ciently indicate the wide range of subjects included. The 
journal is under the editorship of Mr. Watts, a name well 
