THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
APRIL,  1879. 
NOTE  ON  MINIM  PIPETTES. 
By   Edward  R.  Squibb,  M.D.,  of  Brooklyn. 
The  last  number  of  this  journal  contains  a  paper  by  Mr.  Chas.  W. 
Drew  upon  this  subject.  These  pipettes  and  the  arrangement  figured  by 
Mr.  Drew  are  by  no  means  new  or  original  with  him,  as  he  seems  to 
suppose,  but  were  in  constant  use  in  the  laboratory  of  the  writer  when 
Mr.  Drew  was  an  assistant  there,  as  well  as  in  many  other  laboratories 
and  by  many  dispensing  pharmacists.  As  a  very  simple  device,  likely 
to  occur  to  anyone  in  practice,  they  may  have  been  long  used  by  many, 
but,  so  far  as  the  writer  knows  and  believes,  the  simple  and  convenient 
syringe-like  device  for  suction  was  adopted  and  recommended  publicly 
by  this  writer  two  or  three  years  ago.  Although  never  figured  nor 
published  as  the  subject  of  a  paper  before  Mr.  Drew's  article,  it  has 
often  been  shown  at  medical  and  pharmaceutical  meetings,  and  was 
noticed  by  Prof.  Jos.  P.  Remington  at  a  pharmaceutical  meeting  of 
the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  in  May,  1878  (see  this  journal 
for  1878,  p.  314). 
Neither  in  the  15-minim  pipette  figured  by  Mr.  Drew  nor  in  the 
20-minim  pipette  (the  next  size),  is  the  arrangement  of  an  external 
tube  necessary.  In  both  these  sizes  the  common  rubber  tip  used  with 
dropping-tubes  generally  is  all  that  is  required.  This  is  slipped  onto 
the  top  of  the  minim  pipette,  and  pushed  down  as  far  as  possible,  or 
until  the  end  of  the  pipette  is  against  the  bottom  of  the  tip.  Then, 
at  the  moment  when  the  point  of  the  pipette  is  to  be  introduced  into 
the  liquid  to  be  measured,  the  rubber  tip  is  compressed  to  force  out 
as  much  air  as  possible.  When  this  pressure  is  removed  and  the  tip 
springs  out  again,  the  liquid  will  rise  in  the  pipette  to  5 — 8  minims. 
Then,  by  sliding  the  tip  upward  on  the  pipette  by  pushing  it  from 
below,  the  syringe-like  suction  is  accomplished,  whereby  the  pipette 
may  be  filled  to  any  desired  mark  not  greater  than  20  or  25  minims, 
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