PATENTS  IN  THEIR  RELATION  TO  PHARMACY. 
141 
active  matter,  and  if  so,  every  month  it  is  kept  its  efficacy  must 
be  diminishing.  Add  to  this  fact  the  one  just  before  alluded 
to — viz.  the  possible  original  deficiency  of  alcohol  in  the  mne 
employed — and,  however  charitably  disposed  we  may  be,  we  can 
hardly  avoid  the  conclusion,  that  much  of  the  ipecacuanha  wine 
dispensed  is  not  of  much  therapeutical  value. 
These  advantages  of  the  acetum  over  the  vinum  ipecacuanJice 
have  appeared  to  me  so  great  as  to  entitle  the  former  to  a  place 
in  the  Pharmacopoeia ;  hence  my  present  communication.  I 
hope  the  subject  may  be  viewed  in  the  same  light  by  the  Pharma- 
copoeia Committee,  and  that  they  will  lay  it  before  the  Commit- 
tee of  the  College  ;  for  if  the  latter  should  decide  to  adopt  the 
preparation,  I  should  have  the  happiness  of  feeling  that  I  had 
done  a  little,  though  little,  for  the  advancement  of  Pharmacy. 
— London  Pharm.  Journ,  Bee.  1860. 
PATENTS  IN  THEIR  RELATION  TO  PHARMACY. 
By  Edward  Parrish. 
The  practice  of  all  civilized  nations  recognizes  the  utility  of 
securing  to  the  inventor  the  profits  arising  from  his  ingenuity  and 
industry,  by  imposing  legal  restrictions  upon  its  unauthorized 
use  by  others.  So  universally  is  this  the  case,  that  the  moral  or 
ethical  view  of  the  subject  is  seldom  spoken  of  or  discussed. 
The  product  of  a  man's  mind  is  presumed  to  be  as  much  his  own 
as  the  product  of  his  hand  ;  his  ideas  as  much  his  property  as 
the  results  of  his  labor,  and  no  one  seems  to  dispute  it.  And 
yet  there  is  a  certain  point  of  view  from  which  the  fact  of  think- 
ing a  happy  thought  and  working  out  a  good  result,  appear 
widely  different.  In  nothing  else  has  a  man  so  sure  a  title  as  in 
the  product  of  his  own  industry  ;  but  whence  came  those  flashes 
across  his  mind  which  he  calls  ideas  ?  Are  any  of  these  purely 
his  own  ?  Has  he  not  inhaled  the  prevailing  thoughts  of  his  age 
and  of  past  ages  (which  are  all  embodied  in  the  present)  as  he 
breathes  the  atmosphere  around  him  ?  Who  can  tell  from 
whence  any  great  inventor  has  derived  the  initial  idea  of  his  in- 
vention, or  what  inventor  can  even  answer  this  to  himself? 
But  on  the  other  hand,  if  thought  be  mental  labor,  why  are 
