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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
tion of what is now said, which lately came under my notice, 
may be worth mentioning here, because it relates to a set of 
substances that have often been thought to be very impure. 
In consequence of having heard practitioners express their 
belief that corrosive sublimate and calomel are frequently 
adulterated, and in particular that the latter is often adulte- 
rated with the former, I examined both salts as they are sold 
in Edinburgh; and, after a careful analysis of five different 
specimens of each, some from first rate establishments, others 
from the most insignificant shops, it appeared that the least 
pure specimen of corrosive sublimate contained ninety-seven 
per cent, of real salt, — that the least pure of the specimens 
of calomel contained 96.6 per cent, of genuine salt, — and 
that often calomels from ten different different shops not one 
contained so much as a five hundredth of its weight of corro- 
sive sublimate. 
Farther, I am inclined to think, that where chemical drugs 
are adulterated by the manufacturer, the source of the practice 
is frequently, not fraudulent intention on his part, but — as 
we have already seen to be the case in regard to some spurious 
drugs of foreign origin — the necessity of meeting the orders 
of customers, who will not give the full price for a genuine 
article. There is no other apparent reason why a drug which 
ought to be tolerably uniform in its nature, such as the spirit 
of nitric ether, should be sold to retailers at prices so widely 
different as at present. There is no attempt at imposition on 
the part of the manufacturer, each quality bearing its own 
price. The purchaser of spurious articles cannot but. know 
their quality from their price; and, consequently, he is chiefly 
to blame for their being introduced into the market in the 
first instance, as well as for ultimately dispensing them to the 
public. 
The next quarter in which adulterations may be practised, 
is in the establishments of the wholesale druggists. There is 
still, indeed, another description of persons, besides foreign 
merchants and home manufacturers, through whose hands we 
