MANUFACTURE,  IMPURITIES  AND  TESTS  OF  CHLOROFORM.  431 
earnest  attention  at  the  hands  of  those  who  use  them.  Chemis- 
try receives  but  a  small  share  of  the  attention  of  medical  men ; 
first,  because  it  has  become  an  abstruse,  complicated,  and  sub- 
divided science,  whose  advances  are  too  rapid  for  collateral  com- 
prehension ;  and  secondly,  because  the  manufacture  of  chemicals 
on  the  large  scale  is  supposed  to  have  taken  charge  of  that 
speciality,  and  to  furnish  the  necessary  scientific  research  and 
knowledge,  thus  relieving  the  physician  of  this  important  tax 
upon  his  time  and  intellect,  and  at  the  same  time  furnishing  his 
implements  in  the  desired  quantity  and  condition.  But  it  so 
happens  that  the  scientific  research  and  accumulating  knowledge 
in  all  branches  of  manufacture  are  rather  in  the  direction  of 
large  profits  than  improved  therapeutics,  and  therefore,  practi- 
cally, the  profession  of  medicine  in  tacitly  relieving  itself  of  the 
necessity  for  chemical  and  pharmaceutical  knowledge,  has  suf- 
fered its  materia  medica  to  be  debased,  and  neglected  the  means 
of  check  and  control. 
It  is  abundantly  demonstrated  by  daily  experience  that  more 
chemical  research  and  labor  are  now  required  to  discriminate 
between  good  and  bad  medicinal  substances,  than  for  the  proper 
preparation  of  most  of  them,  while  many,  from  their  character, 
defy  all  proper  scrutiny.  For  instance,  it  is  far  easier  to  make 
medicinal  hydrocyanic  acid,  than  to  ascertain  the  strength  or 
purity  of  an  unknown  sample,  while  such  substances  as  compound 
extract  of  colocynth  can  never  have  their  value  determined  by 
examination.  Again,  from  this  want  of  knowledge,  research, 
and  attention  on  the  part  of  the  physician,  it  happens,  as  in  the 
case  of  Chloroform,  that  simple  discriminative  tests  follow  the 
introduction  of  important  substances  at  so  long  intervals  that 
the  true  value  of  the  substance  is  lost,  or  much  impaired,  through 
its  undetected  impurities. 
Of  the  number  of  pharmaceutists  in  the  United  States,  the 
proportion  of  those  who  make  their  own  most  simple  chemical 
preparations  is  very  small,  while  of  the  physicians  who  test  and 
examine  the  preparations  they  use,  the  proportion  is  perhaps 
still  smaller.  The  physician  relies  upon  his  pharmaceutist,  and 
the  pharmaceutist  relies  upon  the  manufacturer,  and  thus  the 
ultimate  source  of  supply  is  not  only  removed  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  the  profession,  but  beyond  the  reach  of  professional  in- 
