350 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 28,1871. 
"be a satisfaction to all, that one of your oldest members 
should now represent you at head-quarters. The London 
Council is much the better for the shrewd common sense 
so characteristic of its Scotch members. 
Perhaps even some of my present audience would not 
care to pass a stringent examination in thermal equiva¬ 
lents or the primordial utricle. Nor can we expect the 
masters, who really are well posted up, to devote so much 
of their time as would he necessary to thoroughly teach 
such things. 
It, therefore, will always he necessary that the ap¬ 
prentice of the future should have access to local schools, 
and that a certain portion of his time shall he devoted 
exclusively to the study of the science of his profession. 
This will, of course, demand some concession on the 
part of the masters in shortening the hours of labour; 
hut as we get older we are beginning to find out that it 
is not necessarily those who work the longest that do 
the most work. We are beginning to measure a man’s life 
not by its length, but by the work he has done. In all 
directions, in every trade, business and profession, there 
is a growing tendency to shorten the hours of labour. 
It is a movement with which 1 heartily sympathize; 
because I believe it increases the health, and therefore 
increases the available work of our race. It is astonish¬ 
ing to me that men who feed and rest their horses when 
they want to get work out of them, and where they only 
want muscle and strength, will allow, and even expect, 
their poor human drudges to wear out their minds 
and bodies in continual work. This is a digression, but 
I mention it here as a sign of the times, and one which 
will surely act to shorten even your hours of labour. 
Higher remuneration, shorter hours, and raised social 
position for you all, must be the result of the arduous 
labours of the founders of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
I cannot leave this subject without congratulating you 
on the wonderful success of the Pharmaceutical Con¬ 
ference. 'With the Edinburgh Meeting fresh in your 
recollection, I need scarcely remind you of the value of 
its meetings, nor of the extremely social and real science 
to be found among its members. The few who met the 
first year at Newcastle could scarcely have expected that 
by this time we should number nearly 2000 members, 
and publish a most valuable year-book. 
Let us now take a rapid glance at some of the extra¬ 
ordinary advances that the last few years have seen in 
pharmacy. It is impossible to predict what may be the 
results of a more extended knowledge of chemistry in its 
application to medicine. But we may confidently anti¬ 
cipate that remedies will be found to alleviate all human 
suffering ; and that all sickness may become curable but 
that of old age, for, unlike the ancient alchemists, we 
except this ailment as beyond human power. What does 
not mankind owe to the discoverer of chloroform ? 
Reckon up the sum total of lives saved and suffering 
alleviated, and tell me, if you can, the value of that dis¬ 
covery. Again, following the germ-theory of disease, 
how enormously has the external use of carbolic acid as 
a germ destructive increased the surgeon’s power to save 
the limbs and the lives of his poor patients. What would 
medicine do now without morphia, quinine, strychnine 
and the other alkaloids, the extraction of every one of 
which, from their natural sources, has been an elaborate 
chemical study and a triumph in itself ? Who can define 
the limits of such inquiries ? We have every reason to 
expect that some, perhaps all of these complex bodies 
will some day be produced artificially in the laboratory. 
The masterly researches of Dr. Wright, on the substitu¬ 
tion products of morphia and codeia, certainly point in 
this direction ; while the preparation of artificial quinine 
has been as long looked forward to as was the “ elixir of 
life ” and the “ philosopher’s stone ” in former times. 
It is remarkable that researches of this nature, if unsuc¬ 
cessful in attaining the object in view, are invariably 
fruitful in other discoveries. It was, I believe, in re¬ 
searches to test the possibility of making artificial quinine, 
that Mr. Perkin made his wonderful discovery of mauve, 
—a discovery which has laid the foundations of a gigantic 
industry of such rapid growth that it has revolutionized 
in a few years the colours of the world. So the late Dr. 
Matthiessen, in his research on morphia, obtained apo- 
morphia, another base differing from the former only by 
an atom of water, and yet having such totally opposite 
properties that it is the most rapid emetic known. 
Recently, another substance of vegetable origin, aliza¬ 
rine, has yielded to the persevering attacks of chemists, 
and is now manufactured largely, and in many instances, 
it supersedes, and in some respects is finer than, the na¬ 
tural colour. It is worthy of remark that this new 
colour, like those from aniline, is a product of coal-tar, 
being derived from anthracene, one of its constituents, 
discovered by Dr. Anderson. It is a remarkable fact, 
and worth reflecting on, that as we extract our light and 
heat from coal, the buried light and heat of the sun 
collected ages ago, so we are now enabled even to split 
up the buried rays into all their component colours and 
print them indelibly on our fabrics. This is not a figure 
of speech, but an actual fact. 
There is little doubt that indigo, another vegetable 
colour, will not long hold out against the determined 
synthesists, wdio will ere long succeed in piecing it 
together; indeed, the discovery is already announced. 
Think, also, of the numerous odours and flavours che¬ 
mistry has given us,—the subtle ethers, which render- 
the flavours of our choicest fruits even more perfectly 
than they could be obtained from the fruits themselves. 
As one example only of an odour, take nitro-benzol, now 
so enormously used to give an almond flavour to a scented 
soap, at a cost within the reach of the poorest of our 
population. 
The increasing use of bromide of potassium, another 
of chemistry’s contributions, would have been impossi¬ 
ble, were it not for the extraordinary discovery of an ap¬ 
parently evaporated sea-water bed in Germany. The- 
amount of bromide consumed in medicine is now enor¬ 
mous, and most of it is derived from this source. The- 
same mines have also completely changed our sources of' 
potash ; they produce far more than all the other sources- 
of England and France put together, and have so reduced 
the price that carbonate of potash is now largely made- 
in this country at a price which competes most favour¬ 
ably with American pearlash and will ultimately drive it 
out of the market. Bromide of potassium is an instance- 
of a substance long used in medicine before its valuable- 
properties were discovered. 
One of the most remarkable chemical contributions to 
medicine is chloral hydrate; the rapid increase of the use 
of this substance is so extraordinary, that I know of one 
firm alone which disposes of 1000 lb. per week, and this is 
probably not half the consumption. It is certainly, after¬ 
chloroform, the most curious selection from the labora¬ 
tory of organic research, in its effects on the human 
system. I would venture to remark here that I hope 
Germany will not always supply the most of such prepa¬ 
rations as this and the vegetable alkaloids. At present, 
no doubt, they have a large advantage over us in the- 
manufacture of these substances where much spirit is re¬ 
quired, from the extravagant price of duty-paid spirit 
here. Methylated spirit cannot always be used, and, 
moreover, it introduces impurities. It has always ap¬ 
peared to me that our Government should have gone- 
further, and allowed the use of pure spirit duty free for- 
manufacturing purposes; the use of such would have- 
secured the admission to the works of excise officers, who- 
could prevent any abuse of the privilege. It is admitted 
that methylated spirit can be made potable, and our local 
shebeens and police courts can testify to its value as an. 
intoxicant. Indeed, if our whisky shops were restricted 
by law to the use of pure methylated spirit, we should 
cease to hear of the maddening effects produced in our 
streets by vile drinks of unknown composition. Pepsino 
and pancreatin deserve a passing notice,—these curious. 
