90  Pharmaceutical  Colleges,  etc.  Si"' 
intended  for  them,  but  for  the  public,  to  make  them  alive  to  the  danger  they 
run  when  placing  their  lives  into  the  hands  of  ignorant  druggists. 
And  what  effect  has  this  article  had  upon  the  public  as  represented  by  the 
press  ?  Several  newspapers  of  Philadelphia,  in  commenting  upon  these  and 
other  statements,  use  them  as  so  many  arguments  in  favor  of  abandoning  the 
technical  Latin  terms  altogether,  and  of  making  physicians  write  their  prescrip- 
tions, and  apothecaries  label  their  bottles,  &c,  in  the  vernacular.  The  folly  of 
such  a  demand  is  quite  apparent  to  those,  who  have  paid  a  little  attention  to 
the  popular  names  of  drugs  which  are  in  use  in  different  localities  ;  they  can  very 
well  understand  the  endless  confusion,  and  even  danger,  that  would  result  from 
such  an  innovation. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  an  extra-careful  physician  should  take  the  pains  of 
writing  an  elaborate  series  of  directions  in  Latin,  he  might  almost,  with  a  cer- 
tainty, expect  that  they  would  not  be  followed  by  the  pharmacist  to  the  letter, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  pharmacist  understands  the  manipulations  in 
preparing  and  compounding  usually  much  better  than  the  prescriber,  who  prob- 
ably has  never  handled  a  pestle  or  a  pill  machine.  If.  however,  directions  to 
the  patient  are  meant  in  the  above  quotation,  we  would  point  its  author  to 
Pereira's  Physician's  Prescription  book,  pages  9  and  10,  where  the  objections 
to  such  a  practice  are  briefly  but  well  stated,  a3  also  its  injustice  towards  the 
compounder  and  the  patient. 
Burning  of  a  Laboratory  and  Drug  Store. — On  the  afternoon  of  Decern- 
ber  30th  last,  the  store  and  laboratory  of  Mr.  Frederick  Stearns,  at  Detroit,  was 
destroyed  by  fire,  which  originated  from  the  breaking  of  one  or  more  bottles  of 
rhigolene,  and  resulted  in  the  death  of  four  employees — the  engineer  and  three 
boys  of  15  years  and  upwards.  The  building,  23  x  100  feet,  was  four  stories 
high,  with  the  cellar  running  the  entire  length  of  the  building,  and  with  vaults 
under  the  sidewalks,  used  for  the  storage  of  liquors,  alcohol,  ether,  phosphorus, 
oils  and  similar  combustible  material;  the  upper  floor  having  been  arcaded, 
another  floor  was  thus  obtained,  making,  with  the  cellar,  six  in  all.  The  ground 
floor  was  occupied  by  the  store,  which  communicated  with  the  cellar  by  a  stair- 
way near  its  middle,  and  running  at  right  angles  with  its  length.  The  stairways 
leading  to  the  upper  floors  were  in  the  rear  part  of  the  building,  on  one  side, 
the  other  side  being  occupied  by  the  hatchway,  which  was  open.  The  second 
floor  was  the  wholesale  order  and  stock  room,  the  three  upper  floors  being  used 
as  mill-room,  press  room,  laboratory,  &c,  with  the  requisite  apparatus.  The 
steam  boiler  was  in  the  vault,  and  in  the  cellar  the  gas  had  to  be  kept  burning 
continually. 
A  dozen  12-oz.  bottles  of  rhigolene  having  been  received  from  Boston,  a  boy 
was  directed  to  carry  the  dangerous  article  into  the  vault.  Immediately  after 
getting  into  the  cellar  a  bottle  was  heard  to  break,  and  almost  in  the  same  in- 
stant a  volume  of  fire  rushed  up  the  stairway  in  the  centre  of  the  store  and 
the  hatchway  in  the  rear,  the  pressure  in  the  store  being  thereby  increased  to 
such  a  degree  that  the  front  door  could  not  be  opened  from  within,  and  had  to 
be  forced  from  without,  to  offer  a  means  of  escape  for  the  clerks  and  customers 
then  present ;  the  men  engaged  on  the  second  floor  had  to  jump  out  of  the  win- 
