182 
ETHERIAL SOLUTION OF PREPARED COTTON. 
^•7th. No heat is necessary for its application, and the presence of 
any moderate degree of cold is only objectionable in retarding the 
evaporation of the ether. 
^^8tb. It may be made at a trifling cost — an ounce phial, intrinsi- 
cally worth little^ being sufficient for a great number of dressings.'^ 
In the same article we find allusion made to its applica- 
tion in the formation of permanent splints, its use as a means 
of rendering pasteboard splints impervious to moisture, and 
the advantage to the pathologist of coating his hands with 
it before post mortem examinations. 
The next number of the same Journal, issued one week 
later, contained an article on the same subject by John 
P. Maynard, of Dedham, Mass., in which he claims to have 
been the first to use the preparation as an adhesive plaster, 
and proceeds to detail its advantages as proved by a number 
of experiments made by himself and by numerous physicians 
and surgeons in Boston. In the same number of the Journal 
an editorial notice appears which recommends' the Collo- 
dion^ as it is there named, in terms of approval, and in 
relation to its adhesiveness says, nothing known to us 
will compare with it in this respect." 
The discussion as to priority of discovery has been con- 
tinued in several subsequent numbers of the same Journal. 
On the merits of this controversy we have nothing to say, nor 
do the numerous uses of this solution in surgical practice fall 
within the sphere of our investigations. What particularly 
concerns us as pharmaceutists is its mode of preparation, 
and upon this subject both the writers referred to have left 
us in the dark. As soon as a demand was created for the 
article, Dr. Maynard's formula for preparing it was placed 
in the hands of Maynard & Noyes, Druggists, Boston, who 
commenced the manufacture of it on a large scale and mea- 
sures were taken to introduce it in this city and elsewhere; 
as it became extensively known and esteemed among phy- 
cians and surgeons, of course a number of chemists attempt- 
