88  Pharmaceutical  Colleges,  etc  {^Tilm^ 
the  reports  on  the  prize  essays  for  1870  and  1871.  Prof.  Planchon  reported 
on  the  prizes  of  the  pharmaceutical  school  and  on  the  Menier  prize  query. 
The  query  proposed  for  the  Menier  prize  for  1872  is  as  follows  :  History  of 
the  insects  which  may  be  employed  as  vesicants. — Jour.  Pharm.  et  Cliira.  1871,. 
448. 
The  Next  International  Pharmaceutical  Congress  will  not  be  held  this 
year,  but  has  been  postponed  until  1874.  The  Directories  of  the  North  Ger- 
man, South  German  and  Austrian  Apothecaries'  Societies,  by  letters  of  May  and 
June,  1871,  suggested  the  postponement  of  the  Congress  for  two  years,  mainly 
on  the  ground  of  the  unsettled  condition  of  France  and  the  proposed  consoli- 
dation of  the  two  German  Societies.  The  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, at  the  meeting  heid  Sept.  7th,  adopted  the  same  views.— Pharm.  Zeitschr. 
f.  Russl,  1871,  631. 
gjinute  of  %  f^rmaawtital  Iteetinp- 
A  pharmaceutical  meeting  was  held  on  the  afternoon  of  January  16th,  1872.. 
Prof.  Procter  presided  and  Edwin  McC.  Boring  was  appointed  Eegistrar pro 
tern.    The  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  were  read  and  approved. 
Prof.  Maisch  exhibited  the  seed  of  Myristica  fatua,  or  male  nutmeg,  which 
he  stated  was  occasionally  found  in  the  shops  on  the  Continent,  generally 
worm-eaten,  in  three  conditions,  kernel,  kernel  and  shell,  and  kernel,  seed-shell 
and  mace.  The  flavor  of  the  kernel  ar  d  mace  is  greatly  inferior  to  that  of  the 
true  nutmeg  and  mace.  He  did  not  know  to  what  use  they  were  applied  unless 
it  were  that  of  adulteration. 
The  Professor  then  exhibited  a  specimen  of  Peruvian  bark  and  a  very  large 
cone  from  Pinus  Lombertiarta.  The  Peruvian  bark,  he  stated,  had  been  sold 
to  this  city,  by  a  New  York  house,  for  calisaya,  but  it  possessed  none  of  its 
characters,  having  a  coarsely  fibrous  liber,  covered  with  a  thick,  soft  cork;  a 
similar,  if  not  the  same  article,  had  been  sold,  also  from  New  York,  to  this  city, 
as  red  bark.  A  conversation  then  followed  between  Messrs.  Procter  and  Maisch 
in  regard  to  the  cinchonas.  Prof.  Maisch  stated  that  Mr.  Broughton  and  Mr. 
Howard  had  found  an  unusually  large  percentage  of  alkaloids  in  barks  from 
cinchona  trees  cultivated  in  India,  proving  that  careful  cultivation  increases 
the  percentage  of  alkaloids.  Prof.  Procter  asked  the  question,  whether  the 
percentage  of  alkaloids  in  the  younger  and  older  bark  of  cinchona  trees  grow- 
ing in  South  America  had  ever  been  ascertained?  Prof.  Maisch  replied  that 
Professor  Karsten,  who  had  spent  about  ten  years  in  Venezuela,  was  perhaps 
the  only  one  who  had  examined,  on  the  spot,  South  American  cinchona  bark 
from  well-authenticated  species,  and  found  that  the  percentage  of  alkaloids 
increased  as  the  young  bark  became  older. 
The  California  pine  cone  had  been  sent  by  Mr.  Wenzell,  of  San  Francisco 
who  recently  read  a  paper  before  the  California  Pharmaceutical  Society  on 
the  hydrocarbon  obtained  from  another  species,  the  volatile  oil  of  which  appears 
to  be  extensively  used  in  California  for  various  purposes. 
