348 
Notes  on  Practical  Pharmacy. 
Am.  Jour.  Ptaarm. 
July,  1894 
stances  which  the  observer  plainly  notes  are  the  most  discouraging 
and  unsatisfactory.  It  may  be  that  the  not  over-ambitious  mistake 
it  as  an  occupation  of  comparative  ease,  imposing  nothing  which  is 
exacting  or  imperative ;  but  even  if  so,  it  is  still  the  failure  and  no 
less  a  labor  unrequited.  The  knowledge  of  this  often  comes  too 
late  in  life's  experience  to  retrace  steps,  to  rectify  or  recall.  This 
result  is  not  exclusively  the  fate  of  the  apothecary,  but  is  likewise 
met  with  in  all  the  other  avenues  of  business  life.  Conditions,  how- 
ever, for  the  past  few  years  have  been  adverse  to  the  prospects  of 
the  apothecary.  The  shifting  uncertainties  of  mercantile  life — con- 
trolling causes  which  cannot  be  averted — the  vicissitudes  of  fortune^ 
the  errors  of  judgment,  mistaken,  the  generous  hand  that  helps 
another  often  ruined  in  the  benefaction — all  contribute  in  one  way 
or  another  to'make  the  sum  of  life's  adversities,  and  these  we  all 
have  to  meet  as  best  we  can.  How  wise,  then,  to  unite  for  mutual 
aid.  When  these  adversities  have  swept  in  like  successive,  devas- 
tating tides,  carrying  away  all  that  has  been  won  by  toil  and  accu- 
mulated by  patience,  surely  such  a  lot  appeals  keenly  to  our  most 
tender  sympathies.  The  hand  which  bestows  need  not  be  seen,  and 
the  hand  which  now  receives  has,  through  the  instrumentality  of 
union,  extended  like  benefactions  to  others ;  the  spirit  of  pride  is 
not,  therefore,  wounded,  and  that  sensitive  nature  already  sharpened 
by  the  fear  of  mortifying  disclosure,  not  hurt  even  at  the  point  of 
penury.  Days  will  assuredly  come  to  many  a  worthy  brother  now 
striving,  when  the  weight  of  years  and  the  shadows  of  the  evening 
of  life  will  begin  to  fall  heavily  on  body  and  mind.  Some  of  us  will 
then  be  found  unprepared  to  soften  the  asperity  of  want  with  the 
comfort  of  means,  or  to  provide  adequately  against  the  adversities 
of  poverty  and  helplessness  out  of  resources  too  meagre.  To  such 
how  consoling  and  timely  would  come  the  helping  hand  of  bene- 
faction— not  seen,  yet  gratefully  felt  in  the  fulness  of  a  generous 
bestowal. 
NOTES  ON  PRACTICAL  PHARMACY. 
By  Joseph  W.  England,  Ph.G. 
Read  before  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Association,  June  14,  1894. 
"C—C"  Cough  Mixture. — Under  this  name,  a  cough  mixture  is 
very  largely  used  in  the  phthisical  wards  of  the  Philadelphia  Hospi- 
tal.   It  has,  in  each  fluid  drachm,  the  following  :  Codeine  sulphate, 
