ON  COLCHICIA.  205 
you  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  the  communities  in  which  your 
future  lots  may  be  cast.  Let  me  earnestly  invite  you,  then,  to 
wear  it  in  its  purity  and  unsullied  brightness,  as  it  applies  to 
your  professional  duties  in  all  their  details.  Rest  not  satisfied 
with  that  phase  of  integrity  which  relates  to  the  payment  of 
debts,  and  the  visible  rendering  of  what  is  due  to  your  neigh- 
bors and  customers.  This  much  can  be  legally  and  socially 
claimed  of  you,  and  the  merest  regard  for  reputation  will  lead  to 
their  liquidation.  But  let  your  integrity  be  felt  by  the  invalid 
in  the  seclusion  of  his  chamber,  through  the  purity  and  perfec- 
tion of  your  medicines,  in  the  care  exercised  in  dispensing  them, 
and  in  your  intelligent  attention  to  the  requirements  of  the 
physician,  as  expressed  in  his  written  prescriptions.  Let  it  be 
manifested  by  your  resistance  to  those  strong  temptations  to 
gain,  which  a  mercenary  system  of  empyricism  holds  out  to  the 
apothecary  and  druggist,  which,  too  often,  render  them  willing 
agents  in  the  deception  of  the  public  ;  and  finally  in  a  uniform 
and  undiscriminating  attention  to  the  medical  requirements  of 
your  several  neighborhoods.  Integrity  thus  practised  brings  a 
reward  as  certain  as  it  is  priceless,  a  satisfaction  that  no  money 
can  buy,  second  only  to  that  higher  happiness  which  crowns  the 
fast  held  integrity  of  the  good  man,  who  has  unswervingly  per- 
formed all  his  moral  and  religious  duties.  Farewell. 
ON  COLCHICIA. 
By  John  E,  Carter. 
(An  Inaugural  Essay  presented  to  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy.) 
In  selecting  the  subject  of  Colchicia  for  a  thesis,  I  am  not  un- 
aware of  the  fact  that  it  has  already  been  examined  by  several 
chemists ;  but  as  there  is  a  want  of  agreement  between  different 
authorities  respecting  some  of  its  properties,  and  inasmuch  as  it 
was  stated,  so  recently  as  the  past  winter,  that  colchicia  was 
merely  veratria  modified  by  coloring  matter  and  adhering  im- 
purities, I  have  thought  that  there  was  still  room  for  investiga- 
tion. 
Colchicum  autumnale,  or  some  very  closely  allied  species  of 
colchicum,  was  known  to  the  ancient  Greeks  as  a  plant  possess- 
ing remedial  and  even  poisonous  properties.    Dr.  Pereira  states 
