-March 9, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
729 
Cjje pjanMccatkirl 
•-♦- 
SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1S72. 
Communications for this Journal, and books for 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 Bkem- 
JilDGE, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square , JF.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
-Street , London , W. Envelopes indorsed u Pharm. Journ 
'.LEGISLATION AFFECTING THE SALE OF FOOD 
AND DEUGS. 
It will be seen by reference to tills week’s Par¬ 
liamentary report tliat the second reading of the Bill 
introduced by Messrs. Muntz, Whitwell and Dixon 
was merely formal, and that further progress with it 
has now been made subject to the passing of the 
'Government Public Health Bill, into which have 
been incorporated some clauses of the former. As 
regards food or drink, it is provided that, adopting 
?tlie existing Food Adulteration Act, the penalty to 
■be imposed in respect of adulteration shall be aug¬ 
mented from a maximum of five pounds to a sum 
not exceeding twenty pounds. 
In accordance with Mr. Stansfeld’s announce¬ 
ment some time since, no reference is made in the 
Public Health Act to the adulteration of drugs, 
which is comprised in Mr. Muntz’s Bill; but Mr. 
.Muntz has given notice of motion to introduce an 
. amendment that would make this measure apply to 
drugs in the same way as to food. However, the adop¬ 
tion of liis amendment would not alter the state of 
the law in regard to this matter, otherwise than in 
the amount of the maximum penalty being aug¬ 
mented from five to twenty pounds, for the 2-fth 
section of the Pharmacy Act, 18(58, already provides 
that the Adulteration of Food Act shall extend to 
-all articles usually taken or sold as medicines. 
In both the Bills now before Parliament the prin¬ 
ciple of limiting the definition of “ adulteration ” to 
the admixture of poisonous or injurious materials 
with articles of food, etc., is still adhered to. This 
is, at any rate, implied in the Public Health Act, 
by the provision that the sale of articles of food 
proved to be unwholesome is to render the seller sub¬ 
ject to a penalty; and in Mr. Muntz's Bill it is 
specially stated that the selling of articles contain¬ 
ing injurious admixtures is the “fraud ” from which 
it is intended to protect her Majesty’s subjects. 
The inappropriateness of this definition, as regards 
any sufficient means of dealing with adulteration, 
has already been pointed out in this Journal; and 
to those who hold tliis opinion, the self-congratu¬ 
latory remarks with which Mr. Muntz introduced 
. the motion for the second reading of his Bill, will 
appear to convey decided satire upon the views not 
long since expressed by Mr. Bright. 
Even assuming the allegations of the preamble to 
Mr. Muntz’s Bill to be well founded, there is still 
room for much objection to it as regards the means 
by which its provisions are to be enforced; and this 
remark applies also to the Public Health Bill, espe¬ 
cially as regards the appointment of analysts. This 
is altogether optional, and the medical officer of 
health is the only officer that local authorities are 
bound to appoint. It is to be hoped that this point 
will receive the attention it deserves, and that the 
fitness of the persons appointed as analysts will be 
borne in mind, as well as the suggestions recently 
offered in this Journal on that subject. 
Dr. Maxwell Simpson has been appointed to 
succeed the late Professor Blyth in the Chair of 
Chemistry at Queen’s College, Cork. 
The President of the Medical Society of London, 
Dr. Andrew Clark, entertained the Fellows of the 
Society, with a large party of the medical profession 
and of ladies, at a conversazione at the Queen’s 
Concert Booms, on Tuesday evening last. The 
band of the Boyal Artillery was in attendance, and 
the rooms presented a very brilliant appearance. 
It is stated in the British Medical Journal that 
the British Medical and Social Science Associations 
are about to take active measures for considering 
the best means for exerting parliamentary influence 
in connection with the Public Health Bills now 
before Parliament, and a notice has been issued 
requesting members of the British Medical Associa¬ 
tion having personal relations with Members of 
Parliament to exert themselves with the same 
object. 
At a recent meeting of the Academie de Medecine, 
M. Lefort, in giving the results of his experiments 
on the presence of atropia in the various parts of the 
belladonna plant, stated that belladonna root of 
seven or eight years’ growth contains one-lialf less 
atropia than the root of two or four years’, and he 
therefore concluded that the leaves could be em¬ 
ployed with greater advantage in obtaining atropia. 
As the result of some experiments undertaken for 
the British Medical Journal, Mr. Wanklyn reports 
that the filtration of drinking water through a porous 
filter exercises a very powerful chemical action on 
any organic nitrogenous matter contained in it. 
This action Mr. Wanklyn likens to that of boiling 
alkaline permanganate, so rapid and so powerful is 
it. Water containing nitrogenous matter was put 
into a filter, and the ammonia resulting from the de¬ 
composition of the organic mater was obtained. 
The investigation was made with a silicated carbon 
filter. 
