58 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
[July 1G, 1870. 
Metrical System. —Of all irregular weights and 
measures, those in use by pharmacists in different parts 
of the world were perhaps the very worst. It is with 
especial satisfaction, therefore, we learn from Buchner’s 
‘ Repertorium fur Pharmacie,’ that in the new Austrian 
Pharmacopoeia, which was issued a few months ago, the 
metrical weights and measures are adopted. The prac¬ 
tice in Austria will of course determine that of the whole 
of South Germany. 
[*** It is high time that a similar step were taken in 
this country, and in America, where even worse confusion 
reigns than here in regard to weights and measures.— 
Ed. Ph. J.] 
British Association for the Advancement of 
Science. —This year’s meeting of the Association will 
he held in Liverpool, on the 14th of September, under 
the presidency of Professor Huxley, and it is expected 
to be very well attended. We desire to call the atten¬ 
tion of our readers to the fact that, in connection with 
the British Pharmaceutical Conference held during the 
sanie week, there will be an exhibition of objects, illus¬ 
trating pharmaceutical processes and products. Intend¬ 
ing exhibitors are requested to forward, as soon as pos¬ 
sible, a description of the articles to be shown, with the 
space required, to the Honorary Secretary, Mr. Edward 
Davies, Royal Institution, Colquitt Street, Liverpool. 
Preparation of Chloral Hydrate. —D. Muller and 
R. Paul point out that the chief point to be observed is 
the passage of chlorine into absolute alcohol until this is 
•converted into a crystalline mass. The chlorine must of 
course be dry, the current must be copious, and it should 
be kept up for sixty or seventy hours. 
The product thus obtained abundantly and almost 
pure, should be sublimed into two funnels set one above 
the other. The spout of one funnel is inserted into a 
small flask containing the hydrate, and the spout of ths 
other serves as a discharging-tube,— Bspori of the Ger¬ 
man Chemical Society. 
Peter Francis William Boullay, the well-known 
French pharmaceutist, died in November last year. He 
was born at Caen in 1777, of a Protestant family, and 
early devoted himself to the practice of pharmacy. He 
worked in Yanquelin’s laboratory. In the year 1798 he 
opened a druggist’s shop in one of the wealthiest and 
most frequented quarters of Paris. In 1803 he became 
a.member of the Societe de Pharmacie. In 1809, asso¬ 
ciated with four other pharmaceutists, MM. Boudet, 
Planche, Cadet, and Destouches, he commenced the ‘ Bul¬ 
letin de Pharmacie,’ the oldest and most esteemed organ 
of pharmacy in France, which under another name, 
viz. ‘ Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie,’ has survived 
to the present day. 
Boullay was connected with, and took an active part 
in that Joumal for sixty years. Among his contributions 
to science, should be mentioned his researches on differ¬ 
ent ethers, viz., on hydrochloric, arsenic, and phosphoric 
■ethers, which he was the first to prepare. He discovered 
picrotoxin. Conjointly with Boutron, he investigated 
the Tonka-bean. 
. On the foundation of the French. Academy of Medi¬ 
cine, he was named a member, and for the space of fifty 
years contributed to the memoirs of that learned body. 
June 21 ; Mr. Benjamin J. B. Crampton, chemist and 
druggist, New W ortley, Leeds. Mr. Crampton and his 
wife were passengers by the Great Northern excursion 
train which met with the terrible accident near Newark 
and both were killed on the spot. 
Corttsptitnff. 
Communications for this Journal , and boohs for review, 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
*** No notice can be taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authen¬ 
ticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 
Chemists’ English: An Echo op “A Voice prom the 
Preliminary.” 
Sir,—In a recent issue of the ‘ Pharmaceutical Journal ’ at¬ 
tention was directed to the numbers who failed to pass the late 
Preliminary Examinations ; and suggestions were offered for 
preventing these failures in future. Many besides candidates 
for examination might pay attention to these suggestions with 
advantage. With the exception, perhaps, of “historic 
houses,” most chemists have occasionally to frame some kind 
of prospectus or trade circular; but whatever may be the 
commercial value of such a means of advertising when re¬ 
spectably carried out, it cannot be otherwise than derogatory 
to issue, as is frequently the case, productions positively 
ungrammatical, or disfigured by bombastic phraseology. 
Chemists in general appear unable to describe their qua¬ 
lifications and goods without mutilating the Queen’s 
English or defying Bindley Murray. But for the efforts of 
the Pharmaceutical Society, our trade would probably have 
continued to exhibit that low type of intelligence which has for 
years past placed it, as a whole, considerably below other 
trades of corresponding social position.* * Thanks, however, 
to the success which has attended these efforts, the once 
fashionable outcry that education, if not positivelv harmful to 
our interests, was of little practical utility, is no longer heard; 
and the results of this alteration in sentiment, and of our im¬ 
proved legal position, are becoming gradually manifest. 
If, however,_ any difference of opinion might exist as to the 
relative practical value of the examinations of the Society, 
the Preliminary (especially as remodelled of late) may cer¬ 
tainly, as regards the career of the future chemist, worthily 
take its place side by side with the higher examinations, 
although it stands only at the threshold of his professional 
curriculum. In any undertaking almost everything depends 
on a good beginning ; nothing, therefore, can be more im¬ 
portant than satisfactorily “ to determine that a youth has 
been fairly educated for tire business upon which he is about 
to enter.” . Years ago, as many now in business can testify, 
the Preliminary Examination was, in many eases, little more 
than a form ; and we cannot, therefore, but admire the deci¬ 
sion of the Board of Examiners to remodel it by introducing 
written papers, the results of which can be, in all cases, fairly 
and accurately determined at head-quarters. This change 
will undoubtedly in time have the very desirable effect of in¬ 
troducing into the trade a superior class of apprentices, and 
of deterring those from entering it who are educationally un¬ 
fitted for its duties, to the manifest advantage of masters, 
pupils, and the public. Let intending candidates and appren¬ 
tices, then, give good heed to this timely “ Voice from the 
Preliminary” (nor let employers disregard it),—remembering 
that, besides enabling them to pass with credit, it will prove 
of great practical service to them betimes to rub up “ their 
forgotten schoolboy’s knowledge,” and, as far as possible, to 
keep it always bright.f 
* What tradesman, for example, would think of carrying 
on his business without books ? Yet the writer was informed 
not long since by the widow of a chemist lately deceased, that 
her husband never kept any books ; and, on mentioning the 
fact to a wholesale druggist, he observed that it was by no 
means unusual amongst chemists. What was still more re¬ 
markable, however, was that the chemist in question left no 
receipt-books or memoranda of any kind, but, as his widow 
observed, “keptall his receipts in his head;” she added, and 
certainly not unjustly, “he was such a clever man.” 
f With reference to the stringency of the Preliminary 
Examination, so much objected to at the late Ann ual Meet¬ 
ing, it may be observed here, that while it is certainly right 
to show some leniency, for a tune at least, to those who have 
