December 2,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS 
417 
®j )t |](jann;tceutit:t[ Journal. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1S71. 
Communications for this Journal, andbooJcsfor 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 Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square , W. C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
■Street, London, IV. Envelopes indorsed “ Fharm. Journ .” 
THE CHICAGO CATASTROPHE. 
“Our pharmaceutical brethren in Chicago have 
lost by the great fire their College, with its library, 
lecture-specimens, apparatus, herbarium and furni¬ 
ture.” This is the first sentence of a letter from 
Professor Attfield, published in our correspondence 
column this week, and to it, as also to the interest¬ 
ing letters of Professor Ebert and Mr. Brady, we 
call the serious attention of our readers. 
So much has been written by the general press 
about tliis awful conflagration, and so much public 
spirit exliibited by our countrymen, that we refrain 
from picturing the terror and ruin which a calamity 
so imparalleled must necessarily have inflicted on 
■our English-speaking and warm-hearted brethren of 
the far West of America. 
During the few weeks that we, as a nation, have 
Been cheerfully performing the duty of assisting, in 
common with other European States, to lessen the 
widespread misery which this fire has induced, 
thoughts as to the position of the burnt-out pharma¬ 
cists of Chicago have, doubtless, passed through the 
brain of many a druggist on this side of the water. 
The letters to which we have referred describe 
precisely the pharmaceutical situation in that im¬ 
portunate city. Its Alma Mater, reared with loving 
hands and proud hearts, and full of expensive educa¬ 
tional appliances, a heap of ruins; the businesses 
and all the property of six of its wholesale, and 
forty-six of its retail druggists lost; and the local 
means of raising the College from its ashes com¬ 
pletely cut off. 
Under these circumstances we cannot be surprised 
that through Mr. Ebert, one of its professors, and 
well known personally to many in tliis country, 
British pharmacists should be asked to assist in 
reinstating it. He conjectures, and in our opinion 
rightly, that colleges of pharmacy, wheresoever 
situate, spreading broadcast scientific and practical 
knowledge, and thus benefiting the profession 
throughout the world, may, in an exceptional case, 
•such as the one under notice, fairly claim some con¬ 
sideration from every member of it. 
We are sanguine that he will meet with a generous 
response. Already the President of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society (Mr. Haseldex), the Treasurer (Mr. 
Hills), the President of the British Pharmaceutical 
Conference (Mr. Brady), and Sir Thomas Dakin (the 
late Lord Mayor of London), men representing every 
section of the trade, have willingly consented to act 
with Professor Attfield as the nucleus of a Com¬ 
mittee for collecting books, specimens, apparatus, 
etc., and funds with which to purchase others. 
Parcels, cheques (crossed London and Westminster 
Bank), and Post-Office orders (payable at High 
Holborn) will be gladly received on behalf of the 
Committee by Professor Attfield, 17, Bloomsbury 
Square, London, W.C., and duly acknowledged in 
this Journal. 
THE REGISTER.—SPECIAL NOTICE. 
We have on various occasions called attention to 
the necessity that every person entitled to be on the 
Register of Chemists and Druggists should make it 
his personal business to see that his name and 
address are correctly given. We are requested by 
the Registrar again to urge the importance of this 
matter, and to say that as the Register for 1872 is 
now in preparation for printing, it is requisite that 
notice of any former errors, or changes of address 
since the last issue, should be forwarded at once to 
him at 17, Bloomsbury Square. Local Secretaries 
also are requested to forward information of any 
changes that may have occurred in their districts 
during the year. 
As this Register is now the only legal eiddence of 
the right to cany on business as a chemist and 
druggist in Great Britain, it is important that every 
entry upon it should be correct, but such accu¬ 
racy is not attainable without the assistance of all 
concerned. __ 
SPURIOUS TEA. 
At the meeting of the City Commission of Sewers, 
on Tuesday last, a report was presented from the 
Sanitary Committee on the subject of the seizure of 
spurious tea, which well illustrates the present de¬ 
fective state of the law in reference to the adultera¬ 
tion of food. It stated that, upon a full considera¬ 
tion of the circumstances of the most recent seizure, 
the Committee did not think it expedient to take 
legal proceedings against the offenders,—experience 
in past cases giving them little encouragement to do 
so. They were of opinion that the traffic could be 
stopped only by the officers of Her Majesty s Cus¬ 
toms, and that no local sanitary authority, even if 
armed with fuller legal powers, would be able to deal 
with it successfully. They had written to the 
Secretary of the Board of Customs on the subject, 
who told them that the officers of that department 
were not empowered to seize and destroy tea, 
whether spurious or not, even upon a certificate that 
it was unfit for human food. They then had an in¬ 
terview with the President of tiie Board of Trade, 
who intimated that the Board had no power over the 
Customs and referred them to the Lords of the 
