June 3, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
977 
will, we think, prevent, at any rate for the present, a 
fresh movement for a like purpose. 
“ In December a communication was received from 
the Warden of Queen’s College on the practicability of 
establishing- a course of lectures on botany, pharmacy, 
etc., and wishing to know if any support might be ex¬ 
pected from the Pharmaceutical Society. Some letters 
passed between the Council and the Pharmaceutical 
Society; but it being found that the Pharmaceutical 
Society did not intend at present to propose to subsidize 
any local arrangements by money grants, the proposal 
dropped through, mainly on the ground of the high fees 
named by the Queen’s College. 
“ In January arrangements were made for the Annual 
Supper, hut the responses to the invitations sent out 
were so few that it was thought advisable to postpone 
it. A very pleasant evening having been spent on a 
former occasion, it was thought that it might be a means 
of uniting the members of the Association more closely 
together, and by being oftener brought into contact with 
each other, of doing away with the petty jealousies that 
so often are the greatest bane in any profession or trade. 
“ Some further correspondence has taken place on the 
Petroleum Bill with the Pharmaceutical Society. Mr. 
Brcmridgo states that no charge is made in London for 
licences, and he questions if the authorities have any 
legal right of making any charge whatever. 
“The new-elected Hon. Sec. having written to ask 
the favour of the Journal being sent for the use of the 
members of this^Association, the Council of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society kindly consented, and the Secretary has 
supplied all the numbers of the present series, which, 
when complete and bound, will make the first volume 
the property of the Association, and be a useful work of 
reference. And the weekly issue, which will continue 
to be sent to one of the new Hon. Secs., if it is thought 
practicable, could be circulated among the members. 
“ The general expenditure of the Association seems to 
have been well guarded, and, but for the large item of 
£23. 2?. Or/, paid to Dr. Hill, would have been very 
small; as it is, there remains a balance in its favour of 
£19. 15s. 2d. 
“In conclusion, the Council submit to this meeting 
their second revised edition of the ‘ Price List,’ which 
they believe is now pretty generally adopted in the Mid¬ 
land Counties; and, at the same time, they must express 
their regret that the efforts they have made for the 
establishment of classes on Pharmacy, etc. for the assis¬ 
tants and apprentices have not been more highly appre¬ 
ciated.” 
The election of officers for the ensuing year having 
taken place, a vote of thanks to the Chairman brought 
the proceedings to a close. 
ABERDEEN ASSOCIATION OF ASSISTANT 
CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS. 
At the half-yearly General Meeting of the Aberdeen 
Association of Assistant Chemists and Druggists, held 
in St. Nicholas Lane Hall, on Thursday, 25th May, 
the following were elected office-bearers for the next 
six months :—President, Mr. John Tocher; Vice-Presi¬ 
dent, Mr. L. Maitland; Secretary, Mr. John Gordon; 
Treasurer, Mr. John Hosil; Committee, Messrs. Cassil, 
Farquhar, Broomhead, Fraser and Spence. 
During the past session a long and varied programme 
has been gone through, the essays on some of the sub¬ 
jects showing no small ability and talent in their writers ; 
and in addition to what the members have contributed 
for their mutual improvement, Mr. Ross, chemist, Castle 
Street, kindly added a share, by a magnificent exhibition 
of photographic transparencies by means of the lime 
light. 
On the whole, in spite of manifold drawbacks, the 
Society still bravely fights its way onward, and strives 
with a steady purpose to fulfil its mission, viz. to blend 
in the nicest proportions the useful with the entertaining. 
IJnitMiiimp cf SmnMc Satieties. 
ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The Revived Theory of Piilogistox.* 
BY WILLIAM ODLIXG, M.B., F.R.S., 
Tullerian Professor of Chemistry , Royal Institution. 
“ Observation cm, quam produco, bono jure miki vindico. 
. . . Materia krec itrnescens, in omnibus tribus remis. una 
eademque existit. L nde, ut e vegetabili in animate, abuu- 
dantissime transmigrat, ita ex utrolibet korum, in mineralia 
et. ipsa metalla, promptissime omnium transfertur.”— Stahlii 
ISxperimenta, Observationes, Animadversiones, CCC Nu- 
mero. 
In 1781-83 Cavendish showed that when inflammable 
air, or hydrogen, and dephlogisticated air, or oxygen, 
are exploded together in certain proportions, “ almost 
the whole of the inflammable and dephlogisticated air is 
converted into pure water,” or as he elsewhere expresses 
it, “is turned into water.” 
On June 2f, 1783, the experiment of Cavendish was 
repeated on a larger scale and in a somewhat different 
form by Lavoisier, who not only confirmed the synthesis 
of the English chemist, but drew from it the conclusion 
—at first strongly contested, then rapidly acknowledged, 
and since never called into question—“that water con¬ 
sists of inflammable air united to dephlogisticated air,” 
or that it is a compound of hydrogen and oxyg-en. 
This conclusion, so opposite to his own preconception 
on the matter, Lavoisier subsequently confirmed by an 
analysis of water. He found that iron, heated to redness 
and exposed to the action of water-vapour, became 
changed by an abstraction of oxygen from the water, 
into the selfsame oxide of iron procurable by burning 
the metal in oxygen gas,—the other constituent of the 
water, namely, its hydrogen, being freely liberated. 
With the demonstration by Lavoisier of the compo¬ 
sition of water began the triumph of that antiphlogistic 
theory, which he had conceived, in a necessarily imper¬ 
fect form, so far back as 1772, or before the discovery of 
oxygen, and had brought to completion by the aid of 
every successive step in pneumatic chemistry, achieved 
by himeelf or by others. 
In 1785, the relationship to one another of hydrogen 
and water being then conclusively established, Berthoilet 
declared himself a convert to the new theory of combus¬ 
tion put forward by his countryman. Fourcroy next 
gave in his adhesion ; and soon afterwards De Morvoau, 
invited to Paris expressly to be reasoned with by La¬ 
voisier, succumbed to the reasons set before him. The 
four chemists then associated themselves together, and 
in spite of a strong though short-lived opposition both 
in England and Germany, succeeded in obtaining for 
‘ La Chimie Franchise ’ an all but universal recognition. 
The principal articles of the new or antiphlogistic 
theory of combustion propounded by Lavoisier are as 
follows:—That combustible bodies in burning yield 
products of various kinds ; solid in the case of phos¬ 
phorus and the metals, liquid in the case of hydrogen, 
gaseous in the case of carbon and sulphur. That in 
every case the weight of the products formed by the 
burning is greater than the weight of the combustible 
burnt. That the increase of weight is due to an addition 
of matter furnished to the combustible by the air in 
which its burning takes place. That bodies of which 
the weights are made up of the weights of two or more 
distinct kinds of matter are of necessity compound; 
whereas bodies of which the weights cannot be. shown to 
be made up of the weights of two or more distinct kinds 
of matter are in effect simple or elementary. That inas- 
* Notes of a Lecture delivered at the Weekly Evening 
Meeting, Friday, April 23, 1871 ; Sir Ilenry Holland, Bart., 
M.L)., D.C.L., F.It.S., President, in the chair. 
