128 
Camphor  Snow. 
/  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      March,  1905. 
tendency,  and  have  also  partially  overcome  the  former  by  dispensing 
potent  eye  drops  in  special  containers.  These  consist  of  a  small 
vial  having  a  perforated  stopper,  through  which  is  introduced  a 
corrugated  or  twisted  glass  rod  that  answers  as  the  dropping  de- 
vice. The  evident  advantages  of  this  device  are  that  the  glass  rod 
does  not  hold  more  than  two,  or  at  the  most  three  drops  at  a  time, 
that  the  drops  form  and  disengage  slowly,  and  are  in  addition  to 
this  but  slightly  effected  by  any  unavoidable  jar  or  tremor.  Among 
other  advantages  that  might  be  claimed  for  this  device  are  the  fact 
that  it  may  be  readily  sterilized,  and  that  there  is  less  likelihood  of 
there  being  a  marked  change  in  the  strength  of  the  solution,  caused 
by  the  evaporation  of  a  portion  ot  the  solvent  remaining  in,  or  on, 
the  pipette  or  dropper. 
CAMPHOR  SNOW  AND  MILK  OF  CAMPHOR. 
WITH    SEVERAL    ADDITIONAL    FORMULAS    FOR  UNCTUOUS,  NON-GREASY 
PREPARATIONS  FOR  CHAPPED  HANDS  AND  LIPS. 
BY  M.  I.  WllvBERT, 
Apothecary  at  the  German  Hospital,  Philadelphia. 
Claudius  Galenus,  who  was  born  in  Pergamum,  Mysia,  about  the 
year  1 30,  and  whose  name,  even  to-day,  is  the  recognized  synonym 
for  medicinal  preparations,  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  recom- 
mend a  mixture  of  grease  and  water  as  a  cooling  and  soothing 
application  to  the  inflamed  or  irritated  skin. 
The  widely  used  and  variously  constituted  cold  creams  of  the 
drug  shops,  as  well  as  the  more  uniform,  though  frequently  less 
elegant,  unguentum  aqua  rosae  of  the  pharmacopoeias,  are  at  best 
but  modifications  of  the  original  mixture  of  grease  and  water  recom- 
mended by  Galen  more  than  1,700  years  ago. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  consumer,  the  present-day  succes- 
sors of  the  ceratum  galeni,  unguentum  leniens  or  unguentum 
refrigerans  of  the  early  apothecaries  are  still  far  from  being  perfect 
toilet  preparations.  The  most  elegant  preparation  of  cold  cream, 
while  it  may  be  a  neutral,  bland  and  cooling  ointment,  is  at  best 
greasy,  and  on  this  account,  if  no  other,  is  frequently  objectionable 
as  an  application  for  chapped  hands  particularly. 
The  discovery  of  glycerin,  in  the  early  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  added  a  new,  and  in  many  respects  a  most  desirable,  cura- 
