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THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [February 11, wi. 
whereby the public may be protected, by all means let the 
Council make it more practical, and members and students 
will cheerfully assist in carrying out the alterations deemed 
necessary. But I cannot conceive any managing body or 
Council, after having successfully pursued a steadily increas¬ 
ing and popular mode of improving the qualification and 
status of the chemist and druggist, stultifying their previous 
exertions by wishing to force the adoption of an obnoxious, 
unnecessary and arbitrary scheme of shop-arrangement for 
tlie storing of poisons. Moral, or rather educational, im¬ 
provement has already answered admirably; why then sup¬ 
plement it by force ? The responsibility of the trade being 
established, why may not their discretionary power be safely 
trusted f And even in cases where there is an absence of ave¬ 
rage care and observation, restrictive legislation will not supply 
the wanting necessities. Again, just as a growing feeling of 
confidence is springing up in the public mind towards the 
long.despised chemist and druggist, ought it to be disturbed 
or checked ? for, as regards poisons generally, my opinion is 
that a great error lias been committed in making the word 
poison so common, that the absurdity of its use in many cases 
brings it into contempt. The majority of people have no 
just conception of the varying potency of poisons ; and as the 
yellow primrose was to Wordsworth’s idiot hero, so to the 
public generally is the word poison, whether it be applied to 
aconite liniment or paregoric elixir. 
If the probabilities of the origin of all the railway accidents 
that have ever occurred, were compelled, by legislative enact¬ 
ment, to be kept constantly before railway officials and means 
adopted for the prevention of a repetition of one and all of 
such accidents, and the red danger-signal constantly displayed 
to show not merely actual danger, but the caution necessary 
to prevent probable danger, would railway accidents cease ? 
Would not one moiety of the protected public always travel 
in fear and trembling, seeing death or injury in every crimson 
flash of the signal; while another moiety would regard the pre¬ 
cautions with such contempt as would probably even create a 
victim to a system which an over-cautious policy had intro¬ 
duced? Let moderation guide the Council. All over-drawn 
or over-cautious measures are failures. We may easily, like 
a modern Frankenstein, raise a monster in this word poison 
which cannot be subdued. And whose soothing eloquence 
shall restore to a disturbed public that peace of ignorance 
and confidence which a poison agitation of possible dangers 
shall have destroyed? Our Council need not fall into any 
error of this kind ; they have abundant means of letting the 
subject drop. Not the least is, that a Parliament overtaxed 
with necessary national legislation, will not lament the 
absence of a measure which would cause their time to be 
wasted upon unnecessary legislation concerning chemists’ 
shop-fittings. 
A COUNTRY PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMIST. 
A Reclamation. 
Sir,—-In your Journal of the 21st inst. there is a letter 
signed “Fair Play,” Brighton, in which my name is intro¬ 
duced in connection with a poisoning case which occurred in 
an establishment I was formerly managing partner of. I 
therefore wish to let it be known, through your Journal, as an 
answer to all communications on the same subject, that I re¬ 
tired from the business some time before the occurrence took 
place, nor was I in any way connected with it, neither was 
any one of the name of Oldham a partner in the house. 
George Oldham. 
1 , Upper Mount Street, Dublin. 
Druggists’ Charges. 
Sir,—As tending to throw some light upon the present 
state of trade ethics in our locality, we enclose an advertise¬ 
ment cut from our local papers for the benefit of your readers. 
It emanates from a “Pharmaceutical” Chemist in this 
city: 
D RUGGISTS AND THEIR CHARGES.—Look at the 
Extract from the Lancet copied into the Local Papers. 
One man charges 4s. for a 6 oz. Bottle of Medicine, another 
Is. Qd. for the same. I charge, on an average only 9d. Can 
it be possible that the public will still submit to such an 
enormous imposition ? 
If worth an insertion in the Journal please put it in, and 
oblige I. and I. W. 
Jan.Zlst, 1871. 
Chloric Ether and Chloroform Discovery. 
Detur Digniori! 
Sir,—I think it will interest those who are still desirous to 
trace the original discovery of chloric ether and chloroform, 
to say that there is not much in this alleged use of chloric 
ether by Sir W. Lawrence; the great credit is due to Mr. 
Waldie, the chemist, as recently shown in a pamphlet by his 
brother, who was decidedly the person who explained its use, 
and, in a long acquaintanceship with the late Sir J. Simpson, 
induced the latter to adopt it long before Sir W. Lawrence. 
It is most unfair the manner in which that pamphlet has 
been treated by certain medical journals, as poor Waldie was 
only a “common chemist,” not a baronet. 
Dr. Formby, of Liverpool, and the eminent French phy¬ 
sician Flourens, both had adopted these agents before any one 
else, but Waldie was the chemist who supplied Formby, and 
urged it on Simpson; without Waldie (the brother) we should 
never have heard perhaps of chloroform as a medicinal agent, 
for it lay forgotten amongst Liebig’s discoveries. 
C. E. 
P.S. In an American Dispensatory, Wood and Bache’s, this 
curious phrase occurs many years before even Waldie, “in 
affections characterized by difficult respiration, chloroform 
may be used by inhalation,” but the operation was apparently 
lost. 
M. P. S. complains that many persons have been registered 
as chemists and druggists who were in business previous to 
the passing of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, and are quite incom¬ 
petent to perform the duties of such. This must necessarily 
be the case, and until the transition stage has passed, such 
cases as he refers to can only be remedied by reporting them 
to the Secretary, who will lay the matter before the Council 
of the Society, and if upon investigation any deception has 
been practised, the registrar will be ordered to strike them 
off the register. Our correspondent will notice that several 
such cases have occurred, and he had better communicate 
with the Secretary, if he thinks he can make out a clear case 
against the parties of whom he complains. 
The Position of Pharmacists. —A correspondent in Cardiff 
sends us the card of a neighbour who combines the trades of 
tailor, draper and stationer with that of chemist and druggist, 
and inquires whether this is an instance of attempting to 
elevate the trade. It is unfortunate but, perhaps, unavoid¬ 
able that in some obscure localities such heterogeneous com¬ 
binations are matter of necessity to some extent. We hope 
the advertiser is at any rate qualified to act as a pharmacist, 
and in that case we do not object to his being also a tailor 
and draper, if he likes it.— Ed. Ph. J. 
J. Wain (Ripley).—You can come up for examination at 
any time, even before you are apprenticed. 
Messrs. Peal and Son. —The advertisement and stamps 
have been forwarded to the publishers. 
“ Atistria” has forgotten to forward his name and address. 
“ Young Apprentice.”—Dies is nominative, die ablative. 
Each is correct, according to the ellipsis intended. In the case 
cited, the latter would be preferable. 
NOTICE. 
We have this week received several letters enclosing adver¬ 
tisements and stamps. In order to prevent loss of time, we 
beg to call our correspondents’ attention to the notice pub¬ 
lished every week in this Journal, that communications for 
this Journal, and books for review, etc., should be addressed 
to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square; instructions from 
Members and Associates respecting the transmission of the 
Journal should be sent to Elias Bremridge, Secretary, 17, 
Bloomsbury Square, W.C.; advertisements to Messrs. 
Churchill, New Burlington Street, London, W. Envelopes 
indorsed “Pharm. Jourp.” 
— - ^ 7 - ■■■ .... 
Communications, Letters, etc., have been received from 
Mr. J. R. Jackson, Mr. J. Barnard, Mr. J. J. Thomas, Mr. 
H. J. Woolley, Mr. H. Humphrey, Mr. J. T. Sandell, Pro¬ 
fessor Gamgee, Mr. G. Sant, Mr. J. Agnew, Mr. Miller, Mr. 
F. Barrett, Mr. R. Corner, Mr. A. Uttley, Mr. H. M. Davies, 
Manchester Chemists and Druggists’ Association, A. M. P-, 
J. T., F. C. S., W. B. S., M. P. S., J. T. B., T. W., W. J.,. 
I “ Veritas,” Chemist’s Assistant, Student, An Assistant. 
