Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
Nov.,  1883.  J 
Editorials. 
591 
some  value.  Since  the  big  and  unstable  potions  of  repulsive  taste  have 
been  changed  to  stable  preparations  of  inviting  appearance  and  pleasant 
taste,  and  since  the  boluses  of  ancient  times  have  dwindled  down  to  small 
pills  and  granules,  it  is  natural  that  such  should  be  preferred  to  the  former. 
It  is  the  pharmacist's  office  to  supply  such  medicines  when  needed,  and 
neglecting  or  having  neglected  to  do  that,  he  has  little  cause  for  complain- 
ing if  that,  what  he  should  supply,  is  prepared  and  furnished  by  another 
more  alive  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  public.  The  plan  of  preparing  a  series 
of  family  medicines,  suitable  for  slight  ailments  such  as  are  likely  to  occur  in 
given  localities,  has  been  often  proposed  and  discussed  in  this  Journal  and 
elsewhere;  it  has  been  inaugurated  successfully  by  a  manufacturing  firm  of 
Detroit,  and  we  think  it  should  be  carried  out  in  every  city  and  county 
through  the  friendly  council  of  physicians  and  pharmacists.  Such  medi- 
cines would  not  be  nostrums,  since  their  composition  would  be  known,  and 
selling  them  in  the  place  of  proprietary  articles  or  of  the  old-fashioned  " 
domestic  remedies  could  not  be  objected  to  as  illegitimate  counter-prescrib- 
ing. The  advances  made  in  chemistry  have  materially  restricted  what 
formerly  belonged  to  the  special  field  of  pharmacy;  but  what  still,  and 
should  always  be,  pharmacy's  most  appropriate  sphere,  viz.,  the  selection 
of  crude  drugs  and  their  conversion  into  preparations  suitable  for  medicinal 
use,  in  all  possible  forms,  should  be  assiduously  cultivated.  If  every  phar- 
macist had  done  his  full  duty  in  this  respect,  and  if  every  j^hysician  had 
not  listened  to  the  allurements  of  interested  parties,  the  legion  of  nostrums 
and  of  specialties  would  not  be  as  powerful  as  it  is  at  the  present  time. 
The  International  Pharmaceutical  Exhibition  which  was  held 
in  Vienna  has  been  not  only  a  financial  success,  but  has  deservedly  attracted 
a  good  deal  of  interest,  as  may  be  judged  from  the  visits  to  it  by  the  Em- 
peror of  Austria  and  of  many  members  of  his  House  and  Court.  It  cannot 
be  our  object  to  enumerate  the  different  exhibits,  or  describe  even  the  most 
prominent  ones ;  but  we  desire  merely  to  mention  the  most  important  fea- 
tures, as  adjudged  by  the  accounts  contained  in  European  pharmaceutical 
journals. 
The  exhibits  of  public  institutions  were  partly  of  antiquarian  interest, 
illustrating  the  history  of  pharmacy  during  the  past  three  or  four  centu- 
ries. The  fixtures  used  more  than  a  century  ago  in  the  Jesuits'  pharmacy, 
then  located  in  the  Rossau,  were  put  up  and  furnished  with  ancient  recep- 
tacles made  of  wood,  clay,  majolica,  glass,  silver,  etc.  ;  with  utensils  of  by- 
gone days,  a  large  brass  mortar  bearing  the  date  1607;  with  original  pre- 
scriptions from  the  last  century,  etc.  Many  printed  and  manuscript  works, 
some  dating  back  to  1546,  old  documents,  engravings,  and  drugs  used  in  the 
middle  ages,  served  to  illustrate  the  practice  of  pharmacy  in  the  past. 
Modern  pharmacy  was  of  course  well  represented  by  large  collections  of 
drugs  from  various  museums,  as  were  also  the  appliances  and  requisites  for 
pharmaceutical  education,  consisting  of  herbarium  specimens,  models  of 
flowers,  microscopic  sections,  plates,  diagrams,  apparatus,  etc.  Hospital 
pharmacies  showed  the  products  of  their  manufacture,  and  the  medical 
department  of  the  Austrian  army  was  represented  by  a  laboratory  the  pro- 
