352 
EDITORIAL. 
for two or three hundred pills, and hold it at such a distance above a 
lamp or other source of heat as is sufficient to cause evaporation, 
whilst the mass is constantly kept in motion with a spatula, observing 
that no carbonic acid is evolved by too great a temperature. As soon 
as a small portion of the mass will sphnter after cooling, when crushed, 
the plate is removed and the hot mass made up rapidly into pills of three 
grains each, which are kept closely stopped in a bottle. When more 
than a dozen of these pills are dispensed in a prescription they should be 
enclosed in a wide mouthed vial which prevents all chance of deliques- 
cence. 
Nitrate of Silver. — We are often called on by physicians to point 
a stick of lunar caustic for convenient use. Several modes are in use: 
by solution, by mechanical force, and by casting in a mould; but by far 
the most expeditious and easy method is the following: Take a silver 
coin, (say half a dollar,) hold it with a pair of forceps over the flame of a 
lamp until it is hot enough to fuse the nitrate, then having the cylinder 
of caustic in the right hand, between the thumb and index finger, holding 
, it at an angle of 30 or40 degrees with the surface ofthe coin, pressing the 
point on the latter and turning the cylinder as the part in contact fuses 
off. A litde practice gives great dexterity; and a point of any required 
acuteness may be obtained, whilst the excess of the salt on the surface 
of the coin can be returned to the bottle. 
I Pharmaceutical Apparatus. — M.M. Weiss and Schively, importers 
of this city, have recently received from Lowig of Germany, a set of 
pharmaceutical apparatus which exceeds anything of the kind that we 
have before examined. It consists chiefly of a furnace, copper boiler, 
block tin still, block tin vessels, for infusing, boiling and evaporating 
by steam heat, varying in size from a pint to several gallons, and most 
of them fitted with block tin covers. Besides there are porcelain ves- 
sels and iron dishes; at one side is a large copper reservoir for water, 
which equally supplies the boiler and refrigerates the condenser, and 
the still is so arranged that a current of steam may be passed under a 
diaphragm within it as is proper in the distillation of certain plants and 
distilled waters. The whole is got up in a most elegant style, and 
, Is calculated for the conduction of a variety of operations at the same 
time. The whole arrangement is got up with a view to satisfy the 
law of the Prussian government, recently promulgated, which requires 
the Apothecaries to make all imprisms, decoctions, and in tin vessels 
with steam heat. 
