524  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.     {Am-  J°c^-1ff7arm- 
as  to  the  best  methods  of  dispensing  some  of  these  compounds,  and  as  the 
paper  was  illustrated  by  samples  of  several  of  the  substances  referred  to,  it 
was  much  appreciated.  Nevertheless,  a  perhaps  too  captious  critic  might 
suggest  that  it  was  not  without  objectionable  features  as  a  paper  read  before 
the  Conference. 
Camphor  oil  was  next  brought  before  the  Conference  in  a  paper  by  Mr.  P. 
MacEwan,  who,  having  examined  numerous  samples  of  the  oil  during  the 
last  two  years,  has  been  struck  with  the  great  range  of  quality  the}'  exhibited. 
Some  were  almost  colorless,  others  very  dark,  and  their -other  physical  char- 
acters showed  great  variations.  Some  experiments  have  led  him  to  the 
conclusion  that  high  specific  gravity  and  dark  color  are  indicative  of  the 
absence  of  camphor.  Mr.  MacEwan  considers  it  desirable  that  camphor  oil 
should  be  brought  to  approximate  uniformity  before  it  reaches  the  hands  of 
the  retailer,  by  excluding  the  dark  and  heavy  oils,  bulking  the  remainder 
and  submitting  it  to  distillation  to  get  rid  of  all  that  will  distil  below  170°  to 
175°  C,  which  would  be  still  useful  for  varnish  making.  Mr,  Moss  men- 
tioned that  in  the  distillation  of  crude  oil.  which  is  carried  out  to  a  consid- 
erable extent  for  the  sake  of  the  camphor  it  contains,  a  fraction  is  obtained 
resembling  safrol,  and  he  believed  that  a  great  proportion  of  this  constitu- 
ent finds  its  way  into  commerce  as  oil  of  sassafras.  Another  portion  of  the 
distillate,  he  had  been  informed,  resembled  eugenol,  the  heavy  constituent 
of  oil  of  cloves,  and  although  occurring  in  small  relative  proportion  the 
total  yield  is  large,  as  the  quantity  of  the  oil  distilled  is  enormous. 
Some  fundamental  errors  in  the  British  Pharmacopoeia. — Dr.  C.  E.  C.  Tich- 
borne  commenced  with  an  admission  that  as  a  whole  very  few  books  con- 
taining so  much  condensed  work  are  so  free  from  errors  as  the  British  Phar- 
macopoeia. The  '''fundamental  errors''  referred  to  and  illustrated  in  the 
paper  were  those  due  to  the  fact  that  whilst  the  Pharmacopoeia  provides 
that  all  measurements  shall  be  made  at  60°  F..  the  imperial  measures  used 
are  graduated  at  the  legal  temperature  of  62°  F.,  and  the  metric  measures 
are  properly  graduated  at  39"2°  F. 
Another  spurious  cubeb  was  the  subject  of  a  histological  paper  by  Mr.  Kirk- 
by.  It  appears  to  agree  more  closely  with  Fliickiger  and  Hanbury's  de- 
scription of  Piper  crassipes  than  the  false  cubebs  described  by  Mr.  Kirkby  in 
this  journal,  which  has  been  referred  to  that  species.  To  distinguish  them, 
therefore,  he  at  present  speaks  of  the  earlier  one  as  the  short-stalked  va- 
riety. Mr.  Holmes  mentioned  the  interesting  fact  that  he  had  recently  ex- 
amined a  sample  of  cubebs  of  the  best  quality  he  could  obtain,  and  that  he 
had  found  it  to  contain  the  different  spurious  "  cubebs"  that  have  been  de- 
scribed, and  he  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the  cubebs  of  the  present  day 
consist  of  mixtures  of  genuine  and  spurious  fruits.  Dr.  Symes  said  that 
many  samples  of  powdered  cubebs  when  triturated  with  water  showed 
a  considerable  separation  of  gritty  and  sandy  matter,  and  one  sample  of 
powder  yielded  to  him  upon  incineration  as  much  as  twelve  per  cent,  of  ash. 
The  chemistry  of  the  nitrites  and  of  nitroglycerin,  by  Dr.  G.  Armstrong 
Atkinson,  was  supplemented  to  one  by  the  same  author  on  the  "  Pharma- 
cognosy of  the  Nitrites/'  that  appeared  last  year  in  Pharm.  Jour.,  [3J,  xvii., 
