EDITORIAL. 
191 
better suited to their qualifications and inclination. Indeed, so im- 
portant are a certain natural ability and a fair education to the profes- 
sional success of the pharmaceutist, that it cannot be too strongly urged 
on those who take apprentices, to feel assured, as far as it is in their 
power, not only of their fitness for the business in the ordinary prere- 
quisites, but that they have a knowledge of the onerousness of the task 
they assume, and are preparedVith steady determination and perse- 
verance to master the innumerable petty annoyances and difficulties 
which must inevitably attend their onward course. In fact, a certain 
degree of enthusiasm is needed by a boy in his passage through the 
first stage of his pupilage in a thorough establishment, without it 
causing disgust and dislike; and to compel years of labor from such as 
are not buoyed up by the hope of ultimate honorable success as phar- 
maceutists, is almost cruel. 
Gutta Percha. — One of the happiest applications of this remark- 
able substance that we have met with, is in the shape of bottles for 
hydrofluoric acid. It is well known that the leaden bottles usually 
employed to hold this substance are frequently imperfect, and their 
contents lost. The gutta percha bottles are not only intact by the acid, 
but can be hermetically sealed by the same material, and their con- 
tents rendered perfectly secure. These bottles may be put to nume- 
rous purposes, and perhaps to none more valuable than as receptacles 
for liquids in medicine chests, especially those exposed to land car- 
riage. We have seen funnels of the same material j and doubtless 
syphons, and various tube connections in pneumatic apparatus, may 
be formed from the same substance, which will offer a very valuable 
substitute for the usual glass implements. 
Whalebone Spatulas. — Mr. T. H. Tustin, in the Pharmaceutical 
Journal, suggests the employment of whalebone spatulas as a substi- 
tute for those of horn, which, he says, are to be decidedly superior to 
the latter, being more elastic and tougher. 
A Universal Formulary: containing the methods of preparing and ad- 
ministering officinal and other medicines. The whole adapted to Phy- 
sicians and Pharmaceutists. By R. Eglesfeld Griffith, M. J). 
Philadelphia. Lea & Blanchard : 1850. pp.567. Octavo. 
We know of no one better qualified L for the task of preparing 11 a 
universal formulary ,? than Dr. Griffith, and he appears to have brought 
to the task the accumulated experience acquired during many years 
application as a medical writer and editor. The " Formulary ;; proper 
embraces a very large collection of recipes, besides those which are 
