February 3, 1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
633 
reader of the paper considered that much good might ho 
done hy trade associations establishing agents or corre¬ 
spondents in different parts of the world, whose duty it 
should he to search out and forward now materials 
likely to be useful, and that these articles might then be 
carefully examined, and their value practically ascer¬ 
tained. The Pharmaceutical Society might, for ex¬ 
ample, do something in this way, in order to discover 
and bring into use now materials useful in pharmacy. 
An animated discussion on some of the topics alluded 
to in the paper followed, in which the President and 
Messrs. Redford, Mason, Shaw and the Secretary 
took part; and Mr. Tate replied to the several remarks 
made. 
Mr. Redford referred to the subject of ships’ medi¬ 
cine chests, upon which the Pharmaceutical J otjrnal 
had published an article in last week’s issue. He thought 
that, as far as the Liverpool emigration traffic was con¬ 
cerned, there was efficient protection against adultera¬ 
tion. Every emigrant ship leaving the port with fifty 
passengers had a medicine chest, which was inspected 
and sealed up by a medical officer before being put on 
hoard. Two such medical inspectors were attached to 
the Emigration Department, one of whom was also 
analytical chemist to the Board of Trade. Mr. Redford 
believed that medicine chests for merchant ships were 
not so inspected. 
The meeting terminated with a vote of thanks to Mr. 
Tate for his interesting paper. 
MANCHESTER CHEMISTS’ ASSISTANTS’ 
ASSOCIATION. 
The ordinary (fortnightly) Meeting was held on Tues¬ 
day, January 23rd; the President in the chair. 
A paper was read by Mr. Carter on “ Carbolic Acid 
and the Carbolates.” 
The reader briefly alluded to the rapid rise into favour 
this substance has obtained, and to the fact of its being 
considered a universal disinfectant; also its mode of pre¬ 
paration and the various combinations with bases, as soda 
and lime, to form salts, with their properties and uses. 
The next meeting will occur on February 6th, 1872, 
when Mr. Arkle will read a paper entitled “ Notes.” 
LEEDS CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
The Fourth Meeting of this Society was held in the 
Library on Wednesday, January 24th, 1872; Mr. James 
Abbott in the chair. 
The minutes of the former meeting having been read 
and confirmed, Messrs. F. F. Walbran, J. T. Adams, 
and J. Stephens were elected Associates. 
Mr. E. Thompson read the paper of the evening, 
entitled, “ Dr. Black, and the Chemistry of his Time.” 
The lecturer began by remarking on the interest of 
comparing the state of science at one period with its 
condition at another; but he admitted that the chemistry 
of a hundred years ago was so different from the com¬ 
prehensive science of the present day as to be hardly 
recognizable as tlie same thing. 
Dr. Black lived between 1728 and 1799. He was of a 
Scotch family, settled at Belfast, but he was actually 
horn at Bordeaux, where his father carried on the busi¬ 
ness of a wine-merchant. At twelve years of age he was 
sent to Ireland, and at eighteen to the University of 
Glasgow, for his education. After some time ho made 
choice of medicine as his profession, and devoted himself 
with diligence to the study of those branches of science 
which were necessary to form the accomplished physi¬ 
cian. Dr. Cullen was then at Glasgow, and though 
afterwards famous for practice of physic and nosology, 
he was then a zealous professor of chemistry. Ho was 
trying to prove that chemistry was a science as well as 
an art, and young Black could not help sympathizing 
with an effort which accorded so well with his own en¬ 
larged habits of thought. Dr. Cullen took great interest 
in the progress of his promising pupil, and employed 
him to assist in performing experiments. 
In 1760 or 1751 Mr. Black removed from Glasgow to- 
the University of Edinburgh, and entered upon some in¬ 
vestigations into the nature of quicklime and magnesia, 
which resulted in important discoveries. It had before 
been crudely imagined that caustic alkalies owed their 
acridity and their supposed power of dissolving the stone 
in the bladder to the quicklime with which they were 
made, and this again owed its acridity to the fire in 
which it was burned. Our young student imagined that 
hy some means or other, he could catch the causticity, 
or fire, as it escaped into the air during the time when 
the lime was passing from its caustic to its mild state. 
But he found that nothing did escape ; on the contrary, 
the lime became heavier. He went on to discover that 
air was absorbed; not common • air, hut, as he called it, 
a “ peculiar kind of air.” He pursued similar researches 
on magnesia, and made an account of his investigations 
serve as the substance of his ‘ Inaugural Thesis,’ an essay 
in Latin, which all were obliged to write on graduating, 
either at Glasgow or Edinburgh. 
When Mr. Black took his degree, therefore, it was 
more as an advanced philosopher than as a raw student; 
and, young as he was, he was well prepared to under¬ 
take the duties of a teacher. About this time, that is in 
1756, Dr. Cullen removed from Glasgow to Edinburgh, 
leaving the post of Professor of Chemistry and Anatomy 
at the former place vacant, to which Dr. Black suc¬ 
ceeded, but soon afterwards exchanged his anatomy for 
medicine. He, therefore, gave regular courses of lectures 
on chemistry and on the theory and practice of medi¬ 
cine. 
Dr. Black had an amiable disposition, great simplicity 
and elegance of manners, a thorough knowledge of his 
profession, and a conscientious care for the well-being 
of his patients, so that he obtained a considerable prac¬ 
tice in medicine at an early period of his life, which he 
seems to have continued till near its close ; and this cir¬ 
cumstance might partly account for the quietness and 
want of ambition with which he pursued his chemical 
discoveries. 
The lecturer then proceeded to explain, at some 
length, Dr. Black’s discoveries on the subject of latent 
heat, showing the imperfect notions that prevailed before 
his time respecting liquefaction and vaporization, and 
giving due credit to the help that Dr. Black received 
in his investigations from James Watt, then a young 
man just commencing business near the College of 
Glasgow, and making his first efforts towards improving 
the steam engine. Thus, while Black was engaged in a 
theoretical investigation respecting the mutual relations 
of heat and steam, Watt devoted himself to the more 
practical question how steam and atmospheric pressure 
might be made available as a mechanical power; and 
yet neither of these philosophers probably at that time 
had any idea of the vast application of their inventions 
to manufactures and locomotion. 
The state of chemistry in Dr. Black’s time was illus¬ 
trated from ‘ Black’s Lectures,’ ‘ Nicholson’s Chemistry,’ 
and a course of lectures on chemistry, by Dr. Webster, 
a contemporary and rival of Dr. Biack at Edinburgh, 
delivered in 1785, a IMS. report of which was in the 
possession of the lecturer. It was remarked that a 
hundred years ago and long before, some ideas were 
broached which were nearly identical with the more 
precise conclusions of modern times, as, lor instance, 
respecting “ heat as a mode of motion” and not a mate-- 
rial substance, and concerning the identity of the. forces 
of heat and electricity, magnetism and gravitation, as- 
shown in recent investigations on the correlation ot 
physical forces.” A remarkable passage to this effect 
was quoted from a IMS. volume of Black s Lectures, 
