339 
THE METIIYLIC ALCOHOL .TEST. 
■ 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—In the number of your Journal for December 1st, I see a letter from 
Mr. John Tuck, in which he ingeniously attempts to throw doubt on my state ¬ 
ments regarding priority of publication of the mercurial test for “ wood-spirit.” 
In any previous communication I avoided making any special comments on the 
wholesale manner in which Mr. John Tuck has evidently appropriated the re¬ 
sults of my previous investigation ; nor did I at the time deem it necessary to 
do more than state a general case, without specially indicating the several dates 
of publication of my paper in the different periodicals. Mr. Tuck now lays 
hold of the latter point, and implies that since my paper on u wood-spirit” did 
not appear (in extenso ) in the Pharmaceutical Journal until a month after 
he had sent his answer to the Conference, that, therefore, his claims to priority 
are at once proved. Unfortunately for JVIr. Tuck, however, stubborn facts stand 
in the way of this hypothesis. The first is, that just eight months prior to No¬ 
vember, 1863, my method of detecting wood-spirit was described and commented 
on in the pages of the ‘ Pharmaceutical Journal ’ ; and the second, that on the 
31st of January, 1863, a very full abstract was published in the ‘ Chemical News.’ 
The paper appeared in extenso in July, 1863, in the 1 Journal of the Royal Dublin 
Society’ and in the ‘ Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science’ for the same month, 
and in December, 1863., in the Pharmaceutical Journal. Surely this is proof 
enough. 
I may observe here that the strictures which Mr. Tuck passes in his letter on 
the practical working of the test for wood-spirit described by me, apply with 
twofold force to his own slight modification of my principal test, since I em¬ 
ploy two corroborative reactions, which he could scarcely have introduced in his 
paper on the subject without leaving him peculiarly open to remark. 
r Sufficient evidence has now been brought forward to substantiate the state- 
ments previously made by me ; the aspect of the whole matter, therefore, re¬ 
mains the same as it was prior to the publication of Mr. John Tuck’s elaborate 
report. 
I am, Sir, yours respectfully, 
Emerson J. Reynolds. 
Laboratory, Ledwich School of Medicine and Surgery, 
Lublin, Lecember 19, 1864. 
POISON PREVENTIVES. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—For a long time a discussion has been going forward relative to the 
protection of the public from mistakes in the administration of poisons, and 
numerous devices have been submitted to the Council, and chemists in general, 
for inspection, with more or less success; but by such proceedings do we not 
defeat our own ends? 
I read in this month’s Journal that a deputation of our most influential men 
waited upon Sir George Grey, in reference to a u Bill for Regulating the Quali¬ 
fications of Chemists and Druggists,” “ as far as possible to enlist the interests 
of the Government in its favour and, a little further, I see that in public 
meeting assembled, the Vice-President as Chairman, brought under most dis¬ 
tinguished notice an invention of Mr. Howell, for preventing accidental poi¬ 
sonings. 
