Am'No°vri8P84aru1'}  Ointment  of  Salicylic  Acid.  595 
thoroughly  to  understand  why  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  orders  the 
crystals  of  sublimed  sulphur  to  be  used  for  the  manufacture  of  sulphur 
ointment,  in  place  of  the  much  more  minutely  divided  dust  of  pre- 
cipitated sulphur.  The  former  would  indeed  present  to  the  eye  of  the 
acarus  scabiei  (but  for  the  fact  that  he  is  destitute  of  eyes)  the  appear- 
ance of  huge  rocks  of  sulphur  submerged  in  a  sea  of  grease,  in  place  of 
the  comparatively  muddy  appearance  of  an  ointment  of  precipitated 
sulphur. 
It  is  true  that  in  former  days  "  precipitated  sulphur "  used  to  be 
largely  composed  of  sulphate  of  lime,  but  those  days  are  long  since 
past  and  the  article  is  now  almost  universally  vended  in  a  pure  condi- 
tion. 
One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  my  point  is  afforded  by  the  assistance 
of  the  yellow  oxide  of  mercury,  which  in  other  words  is  the  precipitated 
as  opposed  to  the  coarse  or  crystalline  or  so  called  red  oxide  of  mercury. 
In  pursuance  of  my  preference  for  the  minutely  divided  conditions 
of  drugs,  when  used  as  ointments,  I  advocated,  many  years  ago,  the 
substitution  of  the  precipitated  or  yellow  oxide  for  the  red  oxide  in  the 
manufacture  of  oxide  of  mercury  ointment,  not  only  for  cutaneous, 
but  for  ophthalmic  use,  and  I  read  a  paper  on  the  subject  before  the 
Pharmaceutical  Society,  on  March  8,  1865.  The  communication,  as  I 
admit,  attracted  no  notice  whatever  in  this  country,  but  was  copied  a 
month  or  so  afterwards  into  various  French  and  German  periodicals, 
in  which  I  read  an  account  of  it.  There  equally  it  attracted  no  atten- 
tion except  on  the  part  of  an  oculist,  Professor  Pagenstecher,  of  Wies- 
baden, lately  deceased.  He  made  trial  of  it  and  struck  with  its  ad- 
vantages warmly  advocated  it,  so  that  about  nine  months  after  the 
reading  of  my  paper  the  ointment  reappeared  in  this  country  as  Pagen- 
stecher's  ointment,  under  which  name  it  is  still  known  and  commonly 
employed  by  ophthalmic  surgeons. 
Mr.  White  Cooper,  in  the  course  of  some  experiments  as  to  its  effect 
on  the  diseased  conjunctiva,  which  of  course  affords  a  more  delicate 
test  of  an  ointment  than  almost  any  condition  of  the  more  callous  skin, 
found  that  in  any  given  case  only  a  much  weaker  ointment  of  the  pre- 
cipitated than  of  the  crystalline  (red)  oxide  could  be  tolerated.  The 
merit  of  appreciating  this  difference  so  cordially  as  to  enforce  incisively 
a  general  adoption  of  the  improvement  is  beyond  question  due  to  Pro- 
fessor Pagenstecher,  whose  energetic  habits  indeed  were  the  cause  of 
his  death ;  but  it  is  almost  to  be  wished  for,  that  in  the  compilation  of 
