252 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [September 24, 1870 . 
The President stated that according to his experience 
the crystallized sugar prepared by the centrifugal process 
by Messrs. Finzel of Bristol, yielded a better product than 
was the case when ordinary loaf sugar was used. He at¬ 
tributed this to this sugar retaining less atmospheric air. 
Mr. Williams said that in his experience he had 
found the oxidation of the iron-precipitate depended very 
much on its bulkiness and the amount of liquid mixed 
with it. He recommended that it should he made as 
dense and as free as possible from adherent moisture be¬ 
fore mixing it with the sugar. For this purpose, the 
solutions used should he concentrated, the precipitation 
effected at the boiling-point, and, after washing the pre¬ 
cipitated carbonate, it should he pressed to make it as 
dry as possible. 
Dr. Watts pointed out the method of the French 
Codex, in which all the operations involved in the pre¬ 
paration of the carbonate were performed in the presence 
of sugar, with the object of preventing oxidation. 
An Automatic Regulator for Maintaining Constant 
Temperatures in some Chemical and Pharma¬ 
ceutical Operations. 
BY F. BADEN BENGER. 
The advantages claimed for this arrangement are ex¬ 
treme sensitiveness, certainty of action and simplicity of 
construction ; it is applicable to any operation in which 
gas is used as a source of heat, whenever it is desirable 
to maintain a constant temperature without continual 
watching, as in the air-bath or drying closet, fractional 
distillations, evaporations, etc. The regulator consists 
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of two iron cylinders, A and B, about inches long and 
£ inch diameter, communicating with each other at the 
bottom. Through the movable top of A is passed an iron 
pipe, C, reaching almost to the bottom, and another, D, 
going only just through the corner, B is connected by a 
union-joint with the outer chamber of the air-bath; suffi¬ 
cient mercury is placed in the cylinders to fill the tube con¬ 
necting them, and to stand about £ of an inch above the 
bottom in each, the outer end of the tube D is now con¬ 
nected with the gas, and that of C with a Bunsen’s or other 
burner placed beneath the air-bath; the air in the outer 
chamber becoming heated, expands, and pressing on the 
mercury in B, forces it towards A, where, by rising, it 
gradually closes the slits in the tube C, and diminishes 
the supply of gas at the burner; by opening the small 
tap E, the pressure is immediately removed and the gas 
again passes freely. When the desired temperature is at¬ 
tained in the drying-chamber, the tap E must be closed, 
after which the apparatus acts automatically, any slightlv 
higher temperature produced by increased pressure of 
gas from the “main” or other cause instantly rectifying 
itself by diminishing the supply at C, whilst cooling by 
draughts, etc., is at once balanced by a greater flow. 
Upon the table are specimens of a drying closet and 
an evaporating dish, constructed on this principle.* 
The Apprenticeship and Early Training of 
Pharmacists. 
BY F. BADEN BENGER. 
The education question being one of the foremost and 
most important of the day, I trust that a few observa¬ 
tions on the early training of those connected with our 
own vocation may not prove uninteresting to the mem¬ 
bers of this Conference. It must be evident to all those 
who have thought seriously on the subject that our pre¬ 
sent system of apprenticeship is inadequate to the higher 
standard of scientific education required in our calling. 
It has answered its purpose in the past, but requires 
modification to adapt it to the new pharmaceutical era. 
Apprenticeships are, for the most part, served in small 
businesses, where pharmacy proper is subservient, and 
necessarily so, to less dignified but more remunerative 
employments. The proprietors are but too glad to add 
to their scanty incomes the premium received with a 
pupil, and they maintain the advantage by getting as 
much as possible out of him in the way of useful service. 
The leisure of some and the ability of others is too 
limited to afford much personal instruction or direction 
in scientific matters to those they have undertaken to 
instruct in the art and mystery of pharmacy; at the 
end of his term the youth has, we will assume, gained 
much useful information connected with his business; has 
taught his fingers to fold a parcel neatly, and his eye to 
guess a pennyworth of hair-oil in a Worcester sauce 
bottle, but in how few cases has he any accurate syste¬ 
matic knowledge of even the elements of chemistry, 
botany, or materia medica ! He then proceeds, at a very 
small salary, to one of those superior establishments 
where “ neither apprentices nor arsenic are kept on the 
premises.” At length it becomes necessary for him to 
pass an examination ; his 
knowledge 
has increased, but 
it is a disorderly knowledge. If he has worked, he pro¬ 
bably feels how much of his precious time he has wasted 
in working in wrong directions; he finds that, instead 
of getting, as he expected, more leisure for study as he 
grows older he gets less, and he sees no other course 
open to him but to cram under the direction of a profes¬ 
sional crammer. A friend who has been prepared by 
Mr. So-and-so recommends that gentleman’s services, 
and night after night he crams his memory with for¬ 
mulae, decompositions, diagrams, antidotes, natural 
orders, and very unnatural methods of keeping certain 
names and facts within reach for, say, ten days. With 
these, if he can keep calm, and does not lose his presence 
of mind at critical moments, he probably gets through. 
But this large meal of many courses disagrees with a 
mind not accustomed to generous diet; assimilation does 
not follow; a reaction takes place, accompanied by a 
lasting distaste for similar mental food, and by the time 
the holiday which usually follows a pass is over he has 
become confused as to his facts, and foggy as to his for¬ 
mulae, but he thanks his stars that the ordeal is over. 
The outline I have given of the studies and opportu- 
* The author claims originality only in what appears to 
h im the main feature of the apparatus, viz. the regulator,— 
the air in the outer chamber of the bath acting by its expan¬ 
sion and contraction on an india-rubber diaphragm having 
been suggested as a means of regulating the gas by Mr. W. 
Dancer, of Cornbrook Chemical Works, and others; but the 
substitution of the mercurial regulator for the india-rubber 
valve removes all the difficulties met with in the practical 
application of the principle. 
