4 1 6  Pharmaceutical  Colleges  and  Associations.  { AmA™'m™m' 
the  excrementitious  matter,  Geotrupes  and  Aphodius,  were  specifics  held  in  high 
estimation.  The  yellow  matter  which  exudes  from  the  joints  of  the  oil  beetle 
was  held  to  be  as  efficacious  in  dropsy  or  rheumatism  as  in  hydrophobia,  and 
no  doubt  was  so.  Another  infallible  remedy  against  the  bite  of  a  mad  dog  con- 
sisted of  the  fat  white  maggots  generated  in  the  putrid  carcase  of  the  dog 
itself.  Truly  a  case  of  homoeopathy  run  mad  !  That  foul  disease,  leprosy,  could 
not  stand  before  the  bruised  body  of  a  meal-zuorm.  The  great  jaws  of  the  stag- 
beetle  when  powdered,  we  are  told,  proved  a  certain  cure  in  most  of  the  mala- 
dies incidental  to  childhood.  The  different  tree  bugs  were  good  against  ague  ; 
the  male  cricket  taken  internally  could  drive  away  a  cold.  Was  the  cold 
accompanied  by  headache  ?  There  were  plenty  of  remedies  at  hand,  such  as 
earwigs  and  cockroaches.  This  last  insect  was  especially  valuable,  for  according 
to  Dioscorides  (whose  receipt  was  unhesitatingly  reproduced  by  Mouffie  in  the 
17th  century),  the  fat  of  the  cockroach,  pounded  with  oil  of  roses,  was  singu- 
larly efficacious  in  earache,  and  the  same  insect  boiled  in  oil  removed  warts. 
Snake  poison,  too,  was  rendered  perfectly  harmless,  if  the  patient  could  be 
induced  to  swallow  one  or  two  bed-bugs  ! 
There  was  a  time  when  three  gnats  were  taken  as  a  dose,  just  as  three  grains 
of  calomel  might  be  taken  now  ;  while  three  drops  of  lady-bird' s  milk  were 
formerly  prescribed  as  seriously  as  a  small  dose  of  some  fashionable  medicine 
at  the  present  day. 
It  is  even  still  alleged  that  the  little  insect  known  as  the  golden  cetonia, 
found  in  considerable  numbers  on  rose  trees,  when  pounded  to  a  powder  and 
administered  internally,  produces  in  the  person  a  sound  sleep,  which  lasts 
sometimes  thirty-six  hours,  and  which  has  the  effect,  in  many  cases,  of  nulli- 
fying hydropic  symptoms. 
A  kind  of  paste  made  from  the  cockroach,  administered  internally,  was 
found  one  of  the  most  powerful  antispasmodics  known,  and  particularly 
useful,  when  diluted  with  water,  in  the  case  of  lock-jaw. 
Considering  the  number  of  species  (at  least  150,000)  "and  the  varied  prop- 
erties they  possess,  it  is  astonishing  how  few  insects  have  been  pressed  into 
man's  service,  either  for  curative  or  culinary  purposes. 
PHARMACEUTICAL  COLLEGES  and  ASSOCIATIONS. 
The  Brooklyn  College  of  Pharmacy  was  organized  June  9th  last,  and  will 
commence  its  lecture  course  next  October.  The  faculty  is  constituted  as  fol- 
lows :  R.  G.  Eccles,  M.  D.,  professor  of  materia  medica,  W.  P.  De  Forest, 
Ph.G  ,  professor  of  general  pharmacy,  L.  F.  Stevens,  Ph.G.,  professor  of 
special  pharmacy,  and  G.  C.  Diekman,  Ph.G.,  M.  D.,  professor  of  chemistry. 
The  School  of  Pharmacy  of  the  University  of  Michigan  held  its  23d  annual 
commencement  on  June  25th,  when  thirty  candidates  received  the  degree  of 
Pharmaceutical  Chemist,  one  became  Master  in  Pharmacy,  and  seven  Bache- 
lors of  Science  in  Chemistry.  In  addition  to  these  the  honorary  degree  of 
Master  of  Pharmacy  was  conferred  upon  Giles  Lewis,  who,  in  1867,  received 
from  this  University  a  certificate  of  proficiency  for  chemical  and  pharmaceu- 
tical work. 
The  Massachusetts  State  Pharmaceutical  Association  met  at  its  tenth  annual 
convention  at  Nantasket  Beach,  June  23  ;  president  Marshall  in  the  chair. 
