46 
New  York  College  of  Pharmacy. 
( Am.  Jour.  Pharro. 
1    January,  1899. 
journals  from  July  i,  1897,  to  June  30,  1898.  With  the  transactions  of  the 
British  Pharmaceutical  Conference  at  the  thirty  fifth  annual  meeting,  held  at 
Belfast,  August,  1898.    London  :  J.  A.  Churchill.  1898. 
The  account  of  the  proceedings  of  thirty-fifth  annual  meeting  of  the  British 
Pharmaceutical  Conference  has  already  been  given  in  full  in  the  September 
issue  of  the  Journal.  The  Year-Book  comprises  abstracts  of  papers  on  phar- 
macy and  related  branches  as  well,  mention  of  new  processes,  preparations,  etc., 
which  have  been  introduced  during  the  year  mentioned.  This  part  of  the  work 
includes  about  268  pages,  and  represents  a  fairly  good  summary  of  the  work 
of  the  year.  One  feature  enhances  the  value  of  the  book  considerably,  and 
that  is  its  publication  so  soon  after  the  Conference  and  the  close  of  the  year 
to  which  the  work  relates. 
COLLEGE  OF  PHARMACY  OF  THE  CITY  OF 
NEW  YORK. 
The  regular  quarterly  meeting  of  the  College  of  Pharmacy  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  was  held  in  the  Lecture  Hall  of  the  College  on  Tuesday  evening,  October 
1 8th.  Caswell  A.  Mayo,  Chairman  of  the  Special  Committee  on  Papers,  reported 
on  behalf  of  that  Committee  that  pursuing  the  policy  outlined  by  the  previous 
committee,  another  American  drug — sassafras— had  been  taken  up.  Dr  W.  A. 
Bastedo  introduced  the  subject  b}^  his  paper  upon  the  botany  of  the  sassafras 
tree.  He  dwelt  upon  the  general  botanical  character  of  the  plant  and  alluded  to 
the  labors  of  Miss  Katherine  C.  Burnett,  in  distinguishing  between  root  and 
bark  of  sassafras  in  a  powdered  condition.  The  following  notes  are  based  upon 
her  report  : 
In  the  root  bark  the  cells  are  large  and  thin-walled,  and  filled  with  starch. 
Pores  are  not  seen  at  all.  In  the  powder  the  cells  are  much  broken  up,  and  the 
starch  grains  largely  set  free.  These  starch  grains  are  nearly  spherical  (if  sub- 
jected to  any  pressure  they  become  angular)  from  ten  to  fifteen  microns  in 
diameter  and  have  the  hilum  a  little  to  one  side  of  the  centre.  They  are  rarely 
single,  and  are  usually  found  in  groups  of  from  two  to  five.  The  bast-fibres  are 
few  and  are  generally  detached. 
In  the  stem  bark  the  cells  are  smaller,  thick-walled,  contain  no  starch,  and 
generally  hold  together  in  patches.  Pores  are  numerous  and  distinct.  There 
are  many  bast-fibres,  and  these  are  not  detached,  but  are  joined  to  square  thick- 
walled  cells.  By  these  differential  characters  an  adulteration  of  root  bark  with 
10  per  cent,  of  stem  bark  can  be  detected. 
Clemens  Kleber,  Director  of  the  Laboratories  of  Fritzsche  Brothers,  deliv- 
ered an  address  upon  the  chemistry  of  sassafras,  which  is  published  in  full 
in  another  part  of  this  Journal  (page  27).  Following  this  address,  Prof.  Geo. 
C.  Diekman,  of  the  College  of  Pharmacy,  presented  some  notes  upon  the  phar- 
macy of  the  drug,  which  had  mainly  to  do  with  the  pith  and  its  products. 
The  chairman,  Mr.  Mayo,  then  read  the  paper  by  Professor  Lloyd,  of  Cin- 
cinnati, on  the  history  of  sassafras.  The  notes  collated  by  Professor  Lloyd 
give  a  very  complete  review  of  the  drug  in  its  historical  aspects.  The  chair- 
man concluded  the  subject  by  presenting  the  paper  prepared  by  Mr.  Velsor 
on  the  commerce  in  the  sassafras  bark. 
