208 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
The results now placed before you will, I think, be gratifying, in exhibitiog 
a great advance in the purity of this preparation, as generally supplied by the 
retail druggist at this present time. 
The analyses I have made of the specimens of calamine are arranged in a 
table, for convenience of comparison, as follows. The results obtained have 
been calculated for 100 grains, 
No. 1. Purchased in the suburbs of London. 2. Prom Leeds. 3. Prom 
Dr. Attfield, marked No. 10. 4. Prom a medicine chest, supposed to be 
about thirty years old. Labelled as from a well-known West-end London 
house. 5. Prom Dr. Attfield, marked No. 1. 6. Prom a London wholesale 
house, sent out, seven years since, as P. L. 7. Prom Newcastle. 8. Prom 
Dr. Attfield, marked No. 3. 9. Prom Leeds. 
Mr. Challinor, of Derby, a large manufacturer of calamine, kindly com¬ 
municated to me the following information respecting it:—“ The native cala¬ 
mine is met with in Derbyshire, in porous veins 20 inches or less in thick¬ 
ness, and imbedded in *a hard kind of sandstone (called dawstone by the 
miners); frequently a vein of lead ore, and occasionally sulphate of baryta 
are found attached.” 
Mr. Challinor concludes by saying—“ The genuine is never sent exce'pt 
when especially ordered.” 
Deferring to the table of analyses, Nos. 1, 2, and 3 may be considered 
genuine ; their appearance, as may be observed from the specimens exhibited, 
is not so pleasing as the salmon-coloured, old-fashioned variety with which 
the public is familiar. 
Nos. 4 and 5 are peculiar, the small quantity of oxide of iron and the com¬ 
paratively large quantity of oxide of zinc found, give rise to the suspicion that 
they are special preparations, possibly mixtures of oxide of zinc and the bary- 
tic calamine. 
Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9 correspond, and are of the ancient quality, innocent of 
any admixture with the genuine preparation, and are of a kind wPich was 
once universally supplied throughout the trade. Several analyses have been 
made from time to time of this barytic calamine. Mr. Brett w^as the first 
person to publish an account of it.^ 
At a later period, David Murdoch, Esq., read a paper on this substance 
before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow.f In 1848, Mr. Edward Moore 
furnished analyses of six specimens of calamine obtained from the most re¬ 
spectable drug houses in London, with one exception they all correspond in a 
marked degree with Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9 in the present table of analyses ; the 
exceptional specimen contained 58’6 per cent, of oxide of zinc.J 
In the same year, Mr. Jacob Bell gave an interesting paper on the same 
subject,§ in which we are informed that six specimens of calamine procured 
at some of the most respectable shops in Paris were examined and found 
to be fair specimens of calamine. The English specimens which had been 
obtained shortly before from the most respectable houses in London, by Mr. 
E. Moore, contrast very unfavourably with these supplied by the pharmaciens 
of Paris. 
From the analyses now supplied it is pleasing to note the decided im¬ 
provement in the quality of the English calamine since that period, and it 
is to be hoped that when a future examination, after a corresponding period, 
is made of the calamine of pharmacy, not a single specimen of the barytic 
compound will be found for sale in any establishment in the kingdom. 
Harrogate, August 18, 1866. 
* ‘ Eritisli Annals of Medicine,’ vol. i. p. 483. 
t Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. iv. p. 31. X Ib., vol. viii. p. 70. § Ib., p. 321. 
