Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
June  1, 1874.  J 
Varieties. 
293 
in  view  of  the  high  prices  obtained  for  it  in  the  markets  of  Europe.  The  value 
of  the  shipments  in  the  last  few  years  has  been  as  follows :  1867,  £1488  ;  1868, 
£965;  1869,  £2004;  1870,  £2860;  1871,  4920  pounds,  valued  at  £3345  in  the 
colony.— Jo  urn.  of  Applied  Science  (Lond.),  May  1,  1874. 
History  of  the  Paris  School  of  Pharmacy. — A  short  time  since  the  fact  was 
mentioned  that  a  discussion  had  taken  place  in  the  French  legislature  respect- 
ing the  dilapidated  and  unsafe  state  of  the  Paris  School  of  Pharmacy,  As  it 
appears  probable  that,  after  being  used  for  about  three  hundred  years  for  pur- 
poses more  or  less  connected  with  instruction  in  the  art  of  preparing  medicines, 
this  building  will  be  shortly  abandoned  by  the  School  in  favor  of  a  more  com- 
modious one,  the  opportunity  has  been  taken  to  publish  a  short  sketch  of  its 
history,  past  and  present,  in  the  pages  of  li  L' Union  Pharmaceutique,"  from 
which  the  following  is  taken: 
The  origin  of  this  establishment  is  very  ancient.  Upon  the  site  occupied  by 
it  at  the  present  day  there  formerly  stood  an  hospital,  probably  founded  in  the 
thirteenth  century  by  Marguerite  de  Provence,  widow  of  Louis  IX,  which,  in 
the  following  century,  belonged  to  Guillaume  de  Chanac,  bishop  of  Paris  and 
patriarch  of  Alexandria.  In  1559  the  building  was  in  the  occupation  of  a  Pierre 
Galand,  when  by  a  parliamentary  decree  it  was  allotted  to  the  lodging  and 
treatment  of  paupers  suffering  from  venereal  maladies.  So  reconstituted,  the 
establishment  took  the  name  of  the  Hopital  de  Lourcine. 
Afterwards,  Nicolas  Houel,  a  grocer,  born  in  Paris  in  1520,  conceived  the 
idea  of  establishing  a  charitable  institution  where  orphans  might  be  instructed 
in  the  apothecaries'  art,  whose  mission  it  should  be  to  administer  medicines  to 
the  respectable  poor.  An  edict  of  Henry  III,  dated  9th  October,  1576, 
approved  of  this  foundation,  and  of  the  formation  of  a  garden  of  simples. 
Nicolas  Houel  applied  for  a  portion  of  the  building  called  the  Hotel  de  Tour- 
nelles,  then  abandoned,  in  order  to  put  his  project  into  execution.  A  commis- 
sion appointed  to  consider  his  application  accorded  to  him  the  Maison  des 
Knfants-Rouges,  in  the  Marais,  and  the  new  institution  was  installed  and 
remained  there  until  1578.  In  that  year,  in  consequence  of  difficulties  met 
with  by  the  founder,  he  asked  to  be  allowed  to  transfer  his  establishment  to  the 
house  in  the  rue  de  Lourcine,  the  buildings  of  which  were  in  a  very  bad  state. 
A  decree  of  the  parliament,  dated  2d  of  January,  1579.  authorized  the  transfer, 
which  was  carried  out  in  the  following  April.  The  establishment  bore  the  name 
of  "  Maison  de  la  Charite  Chretienne." 
Some  waste  ground  belonging  to  the  house,  the  greater  part  of  which 
belongs  to  the  School  of  Pharmacy  at  the  present  day,  was  planted  with  trees, 
and  on  another  portion  of  it  Nicolas  Houel  raised  a  house  at  his  own  expense, 
which  was  on  one  occasion  ruined  by  an  inundation  of  the  Bievre.  The  inclo- 
sure  was  continued  to  the  rue  de  rArbalete,  and  eventually  Houel  formed  there, 
on  the  model  of  the  garden  at  Padua,  a  botanic  garden,  which  was  the  first 
that  had  existed  in  France.  Nicolas  Houel  died  in  1587.  Nine  years  afterwards 
Henry  IV  changed  the  destination  of  the  establishment,  which  he  appropriated 
to  soldiers  of  all  grades  wounded  in  his  service,  and  it  thus  became  the  first 
germ  of  the  Hotel  des  Invalides. 
These  invalids  were  in  turn  transferred  by  an  order  of  Louis  XIII  to  the 
Bicetre,  and  the  house  of  Christian  charity  thus  vacated  \»as  occupied  by  vari- 
ous communities  of  women,  the  property  being  handed  over  to  the  Order  of 
Saint  Lazarus.  From  them  it  soon  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Bishop  of 
Paris,  who  granted  it  to  the  Hotel  Dieu.  Finally,  by  two  decrees  of  parlia- 
ment, issued  in  1624  and  1625,  the  lands  were  granted  to  the  Corporation  of 
Apothecaries,  who  were  charged  to  carry  out  the  foundation  of  Nicolas  Houel. 
Shortly  afterwards  this  corporation  augmented  the  original  land  by  the  purchase 
