SSI 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 4,1872. 
Acid Tannic OT 
OpiiPuri 0‘025 
Sac. Alb. 0 3 
Dos. x. 
Pfennige. 
Acid Tannic 10. 
. . . . 3 
Opii Puri 0'25. 
. . . . l’O 
Sac. Alb. 3 - 0. 
. . . . 3 
Mixing the powder. 
. . . . 8 
3 weighings. 
. . . . 2 
Dividing the powder (3 pfennige 
each) 30 
Box with gold label. 
... 23 
7'9* 
This limitation of pharmacies by Government is 
the question of the clay throughout Germany. There 
is in Berlin an Apothecaries’ Assistant Society which 
is now working vigorously for the abolition of this 
privilege, while on the other hand, the pharmacists 
already in business are battling hard against the 
proposed freedom of trade. 
I fear that these hasty sketches of pharmacy in 
North Germany and Austria, the results of a holiday 
ramble, are very imperfect, but they may serve to direct 
attention to what our colleagues are doing in that part 
of the Continent. Germany, as regards pharmacy, 
is on the eve of important changes. This month 
the ‘ Pharmacopoeia Germanica ’ will be published; 
on the 1st August it will come into force through¬ 
out the whole of Germany, and in September of 
this year, the general meetings of the North Ger¬ 
man Pharmaceutical Society, numbering 14,000 
members, and the South German Pharmaceutical 
Society will take place conjointly at Frankfort. The 
question of the amalgamation of the two societies, 
and of the acceptance, by the latter, of the statutes 
of the North German Pharmaceutical Society, will 
be raised and discussed. There w r ill then be for the 
whole of Germany one State pharmacopoeia, one code 
of pharmacy laws, one arzneitaxe, and one pharma¬ 
ceutical society. In Austria, also, pharmacists are 
by no means idle; and throughout the whole of 
North Germany and Austria, the educational stand¬ 
ard for pharmacists is being raised rather than 
lowered. The following is an extract from a letter 
which I have received from Dr, Schacht, of Berlin:— 
“In 1872, we hope that the education of pharma¬ 
cists in Prussia and in the whole of Germany will 
be as follows :— 
“ After three years’ apprenticeship (half a year of 
apprenticeship being dispensed with if the candidate 
lias occupied the first class of the Gymnasium), he 
will pass his Minor before a Government medical 
officer, and a pharmacist. This examination lasts 
one day, and will be practical and theoretical; he 
will have to make certain preparations, and he must 
possess some knowledge of the laws which govern 
pharmacy. He will have been three years apprentice, 
three years assistant, and two years at the University, 
and then be examined. Then he will have to serve 
one year in the army, during which time he may 
be a soldier, or an apothecary to the army. After 
nine years from the time of his apprenticeship, and 
having passed the examinations named, he will, as 
far as qualification is concerned, be in a position to 
purchase a business.” 
After a month’s absence, with renewed mental 
vigour, and restored bodily health, I returned home 
to grapple with the present, and dream of the future 
of British pharmacy, which, unaided by the same 
special protection, but untramelled b} r over-legisla¬ 
tion, will rise to its proper place among the pharma¬ 
cies of Europe, enriching science with fresh dis¬ 
coveries, and returning some of those benefits of 
which it has hitherto been for the most part only a 
thankful recipient. 
\The discussion upon this paper is printed at p. 894.] 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE 
OPIUM ALKALOIDS. 
BY C. II. A. WRIGHT, D.SC. 
Lecturer on Chemistry in St. Mary's Hospital Medical 
School. 
( Continued from page 848.) 
(2.) It being assumed that the molecules of codeia and 
morphia contain respectively either C 18 and C 17 or C 3fi 
and C 3t (which latter is probably the case, experiments 
now in progress indicating that the molecular formulae 
of these bases are double those usually ascribed to them), 
the above experiments lead to the conclusion that there 
exist polymerides of these alkaloids containing C 72 , C }44 , 
., or C c8 , C 136 ,., these polymerides being 
formed by the action of strong acids, and serving as 
starting-points for new series of derivatives; experi¬ 
ments to obtain these polymerides in an unaltered con¬ 
dition are, as has been previously stated, in progress, 
and apparently with success. 
This facile disposition to form polymerides is not an 
unknown feature in alkaloids, the experiments of Ander¬ 
son having shown that the pyridine bases are charac¬ 
terized by this property; this fact would appear to war¬ 
rant the speculation that morphia and codeia contain 
carbon groups analogous to, if not identical with, those 
contained in the pyridine bases; and, in fact, experi¬ 
ments now in progress, in conjunction with Herr L. 
Mayer, apparently lead to the conclusion that pyridine 
is obtainable from morphia derivatives by treatment 
which, though energetic, is nevertheless far short of de¬ 
structive distillation: indeed, it may be doubted whether 
the carbon groups contained in the pyridine scries of 
bases do not pre-exist in the bodies from which these 
bases are obtained by destructive distillation. 
(3.) A comparison between the formula! of the pro¬ 
ducts obtained by the three hydracids HC1, IIBr,. and 
HI shows that while the action of HC1 is simply to re¬ 
place OH by Cl, or to remove the elements of H 2 0 
(sometimes also replacing CH 3 by H), that of IIBr is (in 
addition to the changes produced by HC1) to cause the 
addition of hydrogen to that one of the two resulting 
products that is derived from the non-polymerized mole¬ 
cule. Thus— 
HC1 and codeia give C lr II 17 N0 2 , apomorphia, 
HBr „ ,, C 17 H ]9 N0 2 , deoxymorphia, 
which may be represented as C 17 II 19 N0 3 —H 2 0+H 2 . 
This hydrogenizing action is carried still further in 
the case of the derivatives obtained by III; thus the 
expressions— 
4C 17 H 19 N0 3 - 2HoO+2HI+II S , 
4C 17 H 19 N0 3 -6H 2 0+2HI-fH 16 
represent the composition of the bases obtained respec¬ 
tively from morphia and codeia at 130°. 
(4.) Codeia appears to be a species of methylic ether 
of morphia, their relative constitutions being probably— 
C 17 H 17 NO { and C 17 H 17 NO { gg 
(doubling the formuhe will not alter their relations in 
this respect). Adhering to the formula hitherto em¬ 
ployed, the production of the same apomorphia from both 
1 alkaloids is readily accounted for thus : — 
* About 8c l. English Money. 
