November 4,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
♦ 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1S71. 
Communications for this Journal , and books for review , 
should be addressed to ^Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
■B.IDGE, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square , IF. C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street , London, JF. Envelopes indorsed u Bharm. Jo urn .” 
AMERICAN COURTESIES TO ENGLISH 
PHARMACISTS. 
As will be seen from the report on another page, 
'the proceedings of the Evening Meeting on Wednes¬ 
day last were considerably increased in interest bjr 
the presence of Mr. H. B. Beady, who had just re¬ 
turned from a visit to America, where he had been 
present, in a semi-official character, as President- 
Elect of the British Pharmaceutical Conference, at 
the meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Asso¬ 
ciation at St. Louis. Invited by the Chairman to 
furnish some particulars of his journey, Mr. Brady 
complied by giving a short account, which cannot 
but be a source of gratification amongst all those 
who have the welfare of pharmacy at heart, although 
it is to be hoped that it will be supplemented by the 
.lialf-promised fuller narrative when, to use liis own 
words, “ the events of the last two or three months 
have come to something like a reasonable focus in 
his brain.” The influence of such kindness as that 
displayed by our American brethren towards Mr. 
Brady, being, as it was, only a repetition of the 
.goodwill experienced by Mr. Howden, must be pro¬ 
ductive of great good in a national as well as in an 
individual sense; and pharmaceutists, surprised out 
of themselves to find that it only requires an ocean 
rolling between their places of business to enable 
them to discern so many good points in their bre¬ 
thren, will be better prepared to give and to receive 
acts of kindness from those with whom they have to 
enter into close competition in business. 
Though Mr. Beady’s reception in the States was, 
to a great extent, the natural result of a high-class 
scientific reputation which superseded all need for 
introduction, we are sure that the hospitality dis¬ 
played towards him by pharmaceutists will be es¬ 
teemed by their English brethren as a compliment 
paid to the whole body in the person of a repre¬ 
sentative man, and should an opportunity occur, the 
kindness would, doubtless, be heartily reciprocated 
by them. 
At the recent meeting at St. Louis it was deter¬ 
mined that invitations should be issued to the phar¬ 
macists of all nations to meet the Association at 
Philadelphia in 187(3, and we hope on that occasion 
3 GO 
England will be well represented, though it is in the 
power of few to leave their business for so long a 
time as such a visit would require. But to those 
who must needs be content with a few days’ re¬ 
laxation we would venture to say that an equal 
amount of gratification and profit is to be obtained 
at the meetings of their own countrymen in con¬ 
nection with the Society of which Mr. Beady is so 
worthy a President. 
On the occasion of a former meeting of the 
American Pharmaceutical Association we remember 
the question “Who is Saunders?” having been 
asked with an evident feeling of cockney bewilder¬ 
ment,- in reference to the statement that this gentle¬ 
man had taken a very active part in the proceedings, 
and we are glad to find that Mr. Brady’s account of 
his pharmaceutical colleagues at St. Louis affords 
material for dispelling a mystery that we were in¬ 
formed neither the Pharmaceutical Register nor the 
Directory could solve. 
THE CONSUMPTION OF CHLORAL HYDRATE. 
What becomes of all the chloral? a question 
recently asked by our contemporary the Lancet, and 
founded upon a statement made in a private letter, 
received by Dr. George Harley from Baron Liebig, 
has elicited several attempts to answer it. Baron 
Liebig had been told, by a chemical manufacturer, 
that he made half a ton of chloral hydrate weekly, 
and that the drug is used in such enormous quan¬ 
tities in Germany and England as to prohibit the 
belief that its employment is limited to the sphere 
of medicine alone, some persons affirming that it 
finds its way into beer. 
The problem of the philosopher and the manu¬ 
facturer in Germany has met with easy solution by 
certain journalists in England, and doubtless they 
think the matter is closed up. But there is a diffi¬ 
culty in congratulating them, inasmuch as they do 
not agree. The Spectator, advancing a few steps in 
the road wherein another weekly journal has found 
a certain kind of notoriety, pooh-poohs the beer 
theory. It says that taking chloral is the new and 
popular vice, particularly among women, and informs 
us that the drug is kept in thousands of dressing- 
cases, while those who begin its use often grow so 
addicted to it that they pass their lives in a sort of 
contented satisfaction. 
Here the Echo steps in with the pertinent re¬ 
mark that what with alcohol, sherry, lavender drops, 
laudanum, pick-me-ups and now chloral, a lady’s 
dressing-case must be something between a medicine 
chest and a dust-bin; while “ A Druggist’s Shop- 
boy ”—who, by the bye, with a sliopboy’s propensity 
to exaggeration when talking of liis employers, in¬ 
creases the number of manufacturers producing half 
a ton weekly to twelve—furnishes a curious calcula- 
