502 THE COLLEGE VETERINARY PHARMACOPOEIA. 
valuable discoveries and recipes?” Then, Messrs. Editors, I am 
told that Professor Vines is to be broken for contumacy. He 
must never again be hailed as “ Teacher of Anatomy and Physi¬ 
ology at the Royal Veterinary College.” If not reduced to the very 
ranks, he is to be degraded to his old situation of “ Assistant to 
the Demonstrator.” I am very sorry for that; but, however, in 
despite of professors, de facto and de jure, and assistants to pro¬ 
fessors, and Mr. Behrens and Mr. Sumner too, I have got the Col¬ 
lege Pharmacopoeia, and, i’faith, I will see what it is made of, and 
get what good I can out of it. Mr. Teacher of Anatomy and Phy¬ 
siology, or Mr. Assistant-Demonstrator Vines, I make you my 
best bow, and I hope your book will sell the better for the pre¬ 
sent you have made me and my brethren. 
Mr. Vines’s Appendix is thus entitled : “ A Copy of the Phar¬ 
macopoeia in Use at the Royal Veterinary College.” Disarranged 
alphabetically. 
I was a little startled at seeing at the head of the list u ^gyp- 
tiacum.” Even White disdains to add it to his farrago of caustics, 
and escharotics, and detergents, and digestives, and rubefacients. 
Mr. Blaine, indeed, speaks of agyptiacums , but he very pru¬ 
dently gives us no recipe for their composition. He is almost as 
fond as White of lugging all manner of things, good, bad, and 
indifferent, into his materia medica; but he is otherwise a most 
excellent writer, and one of the best friends the veterinary student 
ever had. The formula of the college segyptiacum is as follows :— 
Verdigris (subacetate of copper).eighteen ounces 
Alum in powder ........six ounces 
Vinegar .....twelve ounces 
Treacle.....ten ounces 
Boil gently together, and add 
Sulphuric acid .-.. two ounces and a half. 
I will analyse this a little:—Verdigris (subacetate of copper). 
I will not hypercritically object that the true subacetate of copper 
is an insoluble salt; that acetate, or bin-acetate of copper, would 
be a far better term. Acetate of copper is a compound of acetic 
acid and copper in the proportion of two atoms of the acid to 
one of the metal. To this is added alum in powder,—sulphate of 
alumina and of potash, and held together by so strong an affinity 
as not to be decomposed by the verdigris. It is a mechanical 
mixture without chemical decomposition. To this is further 
added twelve ounces of vinegar. The verdigris is already satu¬ 
rated with acetic acid, the alumina is strongly bound to the sul¬ 
phuric acid, and the vinegar remains free in the mixture. How far 
the astringent or stimulant effect of each of these substances may 
be increased by this alliance of the three experience alone can de¬ 
termine. On chemical principles it is hitherto an unobjectionable 
