THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
JANUARY,  1861. 
FANCY  AND  FASHION  IN  PHARMACY. 
By  Edward  Parrish  and  William  C.  Bakes. 
The  legitimate  enterprise  of  our  progressive  age,  heightened 
by  the  competition  resulting  from  the  overcrowding  of  educated 
pharmaceutists  in  large  cities,  continually  exhibits  itself  in 
some  new  phase  of  practice,  sometimes  destined  to  be  perma- 
nently incorporated  into  the  arcana  of  the  profession,  but  often 
too  ephemeral  to  deserve  more  than  a  passing  notice.  As  the 
dress  and  address  of  our  remote  ancestry  will  occasionally  loom 
up  amid  the  ever-changing  fashions  of  modern  society,  so  do  we 
occasionally  find  the  almost  forgotten  institutions  of  by-gone 
pharmacy  frequently  dressed  in  the  popular  guise  of  new 
remedies. 
In  the  present  essay,  we  propose  to  describe  some  rare  prepa- 
rations now  called  for  in  Philadelphia.  Though  they  may 
seem  to  readers  in  other  localities  of  too  trivial  importance  to 
occupy  a  position  in  the  Journal,  we  are  sure  they  "will  not  be 
■without  their  use  in  this  particular  pharmaceutical  centre. 
COATING  PILLS. 
In  the  last  century,  the  practice  was  not  unfrequently  resorted 
to,  of  coating  freshly  made  pills  with  silver  or  gold-leaf,  and  in 
some  of  the  long  established  pharmaceutical  stores  in  London, 
facilities  are  always  at  hand  for  finishing  pills  in  this  way,  when 
in  request.  Some  very  particular  people  of  the  old  school  oc- 
casionally bring  an  ancient  recipe,  at  the  foot  of  which  is  writ- 
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