November 18,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
419 
since the appearance of the last. Of the British and Ame¬ 
rican periodicals he seems to have kept well abreast; of 
the French not so well; and of the most important of 
all—the German—hardly at all. If he does refer to the 
therapeutics adopted in the KliniJc of Vienna or Berlin, 
it is nearly always at second-hand, as the information 
has come filtered to him, not invariably in its original 
purity, through one or other of the home journals. This 
is a serious defect, vitiating his hook as a reflex of con¬ 
temporary practice hardly less seriously than a like 
omission would vitiate an English work on chemistry 
or physiology. Another cause of lessened confidence in 
his prescriptions is his want of discrimination between 
the authorities he cites: a general practitioner, for ex¬ 
ample, being quoted as of equal weight with a first-class 
hospital physician; or the results (possibly exceptional) 
of one or two administrations of a drug being advanced 
as warranting its use in cases only superficially similar. 
What, for example, can be less satisfactory than the 
treatment he prescribes for epilepsy,—a malady which 
appears in the Index as susceptible of about sixty re¬ 
medies, several of which he notes as preferable by an 
asterisk, while the mass of them are recommended on 
the authority of third-rate, or even fourth-rate prac¬ 
titioners ! Compilations are useful in proportion to the 
judgment and skill of the compiler; and though Dr. 
Waring, especially from his experience in the tropics, is 
by no means wanting in those requisites, he. takes too 
much at second-hand (and even that on trust) to become 
the guide of any but the more general of practitioners, or 
the less particular of medical ofiicers. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
The Liverpool Medical and Surgical Reports. Edi¬ 
ted by P. M. Braidwood, M.D., and Reginald Harri¬ 
son, F.R.C.S. London : J. and A. Churchill. Liverpool: 
A. Holden. October, 1871. 
Symptoms and Treatment oe Malignant Diarrhcea; 
BETTER KNOWN BY THE NAME OF ASIATIC CHOLERA. 
By William Marsden, M.D. Fourth Edition. Lon¬ 
don : Wyman and Son. 1871. 
Inorganic Chemistry. By the late George Wilson, 
M.D., F.R.S.E. Revised and enlarged by H. G. Mad an, 
M.A. London and Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers. 
1871. From the publishers. 
Smoking; when Injurious, when Innocuous, wdien Bene¬ 
ficial. By John C. Murray, M.D., F.A.I. London 
Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 1871. 
MEETINGS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 
Monday . Medical Society, at 9 p.m. 
Nov. 20. London Institution, at 4 p.m. — “ Bodily Mo¬ 
tion and Consciousness.” By Professor 
Huxley. (Educational Course.) 
Wednesday. ..Society of Arts, at 8 p.m. —“ On the Present 
Nov. 22. State of the Through Railway Communi¬ 
cation to India.” By Mr. Hyde Clarke. 
Thursday . Loyal Society, at 4 p.m. —Annual Meeting. 
Nov. 23. London Institution, at 7.30 p.m. —“Science 
and Commerce, illustrated by the Raw 
Materials of our Manufactures.” By Mr. 
P. L. Simmonds. 
The following journals have been received:—The ‘British 
Medical Journal,’ Nov. 11; the ‘Medical Times and Gazette,’ 
Nov. 11; the ‘ Lancet,’ Nov. 11; the ‘ Medical Press and Cir¬ 
cular,’ Nov. 15 ; ‘Nature,’ Nov. 11; the ‘Chemical News,’ 
Nov. 11; ‘English Mechanic,’ Nov. 10; ‘ Gardeners’ Chro¬ 
nicle,’ Nov. 11; the ‘Grocer,’ Nov. 11; the ‘Journal of the 
Society of Arts,’ Nov. 11; the ‘Chemist and Druggist’ for 
November; ‘Food Journal’ for November; ‘New York 
Druggists’ Circular’ for November; the ‘Croydon Times/ 
Nov. 11; ‘Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science/ 
N ovember. 
Cffrapttoe. 
*** No notice can he taken of anonymous communica¬ 
tions. Whatever is intended for insertion must he authenti¬ 
cated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily 
for publication , hut as a guarantee of good faith. 
The Preliminary Examination. 
Sir,—The general impression is, that the standard of the 
Preliminary Examination is too high; and, certainly, from 
the number that failed at the recent Examination, this 
opinion appears to be correct. 
But ought not the standard to be high for such an elemen¬ 
tary examination ? For a youth cannot be said to have had 
a middle-class education who is incapable of answering twelve 
at least of the twenty questions set; and I should think that 
that proportion would pass him, inasmuch as the College of 
Preceptors give a special certificate for any subject on wdiich 
a candidate has obtained three-fifths of the total number of 
marks assigned. Surely this examination cannot be made 
much easier. Compare it with like examinations; take, for 
instance, the Preliminary of the Royal College of Surgeons 
of England. In the former there are three compulsory sub¬ 
jects, and in the latter there are ten. 
I do hope that in future the Preliminary Examinations of 
the Pharmaceutical Society will be more rigid, and embrace 
a greater number of subjects, and then none but the well- 
educated will become pharmacists. 
November 12>th, 1871. W. A. M. 
Dear Sir,—The following appeared in a provincial paper, 
October 28th, 1871:— 
“Pharmacy Act.— N— B—, now with Mr. J. M. W—, 
pharmaceutist, 0—, presented himself for examination at 
S— on the 22nd instant, and, in accordance with the rules of 
the Pharmaceutical Society, was examined in the following 
subjects:—‘Caesar’s Commentaries’ (De Bello Gallico), En¬ 
glish and Latin Grammars, Composition and Arithmetic; 
and, having passed with facility, was duly registered.” 
I presume this was inserted as a cheap way of advertising 
the establishment to which this learned gentleman belongs; 
at any rate, it seems to me to be making a little too much 
noise on passing such an examination as the Preliminary. 
The pages of the local print ought certainly to be regularly 
examined, as we may expect a grand report when this 
gentleman succeeds in his Minor. 
W. H. J. 
The Tincture Press. 
Sir,—The vexed question as to the power capable of being 
exerted by a man of ordinary strength when turning the 
lever of a laboratory press can only be settled by experiment. 
The doing so is so simple a matter that I wonder one of the 
principal disputants has not ere now enlightened us on the 
point. 
I have endeavoured to supply the omission—in this way. 
I fastened securely to a beam a four-inch iron pulley, and 
passed over it to one extremity of the horizontal press-lever 
a rope which was securely fastened there. The other end of 
the rope was attached to a board resting on the ground, and 
on this was piled the weight to be lifted. Mr. TTmney will 
be surprised to learn that a man of average strength can thus 
raise upwards of 200 lbs. The weight actually raised, and 
that without extraordinary exertion, was 216 lb., which was 
effected by four male adults in succession. I have no doubt 
that 2501b. w T ould be nearer the limit, provided that the lever 
be in its best position for the exertion of one’s strength, and 
the power be not diminished by the friction of the pulley, 
etc. I must explain that my press stands in a recess, and 
therefore it often happens that the lever does not come round 
to its best position at the right time. I think of substituting 
a wheel of the same radius, and thus shall overcome the 
objection. 
Professor Rankine’s figures must apply to the average 
amount of power exerted by a labourer during a day’s work, 
and can have no possible reference to such a case as the mo¬ 
mentary extreme effort one makes when working a press- 
handle. 
It would obviously be impossible to exert such a force on 
the press of Mr. Staples’ design. In the first place, the press 
