lead them to apply to us on some occasions, but it is our duty to make our customers fully understand that we act as Chemists, and not as medical men, and to refer them to medical men whenever their cases require further advice than a knowledge of pharmacy enables us to give.

We may further illustrate the distinction between an Apothecary and a Druggist by an instance. A man who has been educated as an apothecary, but who, on account of some technical obstacle, has not passed an examination, purchases a business of a surgeon and apothecary, binding himself down not to visit patients, but to restrict his practice to his own shop, the surgeon covenanting on his part not to dispense medicines within a certain distance. The purchaser, not being legally an apothecary, styles himself a Chemist and Druggist, but carries on an extensive practice behind his counter, or in his surgery; and fearing an action on the part of the Apothecaries' Company, he applies for admission to the PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, under the idea that the Society would bear the expense of defending it. In this case, the party is in fact a qualified apothecary, although his qualifications have not been tested; his avocation is that of a medical man, who has purchased a practice under certain restrictions, but who evades the law, by assuming the name of a Chemist and Druggist. He is therefore ineligible as a Member of the PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY.

There are many Chemists who are in the habit of bleeding, cupping, applying leeches, and drawing teeth, and we have seldom heard any objection raised by the medical profession against this custom. It is, however, chiefly in country towns or in the outskirts of cities that this practice occurs to any considerable extent; among a majority of the Chemists in London it is eonsidered foreign to the business, being practised by a distinct class of persons, some of whom have no pretensions to medical education. There is no law by which a Chemist can be prohibited from performing these operations, because being surgical they are not included in the provisions of the Apothecaries' Act, and the College of Surgeons not being protected by an Act of Parliament, have no power to interfere. The adoption of this practice is, therefore, optional; and there are many persons who consider that all Chemists ought to bleed, cup, and apply leeches as a part of their regular duties. These operations being directed to be performed in the prescriptions of Physicians, in many cases which are strictly medical, the Chemist, it is said, ought to be able to perform all that is required, instead of being obliged to call in a third person. Considerable inconvenience, and, in some cases, injustice, is experienced both by the Physician and the Chemist, when the abstraction of a few ounces of blood renders it neces

sary to call in an Apothecary, who is qualified from his station to act in all capacities, medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical. Whether it be right or not for the Chemist to perform these offices, is a question on which there may be two opinions; but it is quite clear, that if he undertake to do so, he ought to be duly qualified. It should be understood, that the Apothecaries' Act is not merely designed for restraining unqualified practitioners, but that it operates with equal severity on medical men or others who possess the requisite knowledge, but who do not possess the licence of the Company. The only exception is in favour of Chemists and Druggists, and this exception was necessary from the cause above stated, namely, the difficulty of defining the precise boundary line between the functions of the two classes, The distinction however, is, we believe, practically maintained by a large proportion of our body, and it is our interest as well as our duty to maintain it. It is for each individual to decide which course he will take. If he decide upon being a Chemist, he may it is true be called upon to give advice occasionally, but he does it as a matter of necessity, and ought not to court practice: if he prefer the avocation of the Apothecary, he may in like manner be called upon to retail drugs occasionally, but he does not increase his respectability by pushing the trade.

In taking a dispassionate view of the subject, we cannot fail to come to the conclusion, that the professional credit and character of the Pharmaceutical Chemist is dependent upon the manner in which he performs his own particular duties. The sphere in which he is most calculated, by his education and position, to attain to eminence, is in the practical operations of Pharmacy-the appli cation of chemical science to the preparation of remedial agents. Although he must in some degree yield to the force of circumstances, by descending to collateral branches of business, which the custom of the country or of his particular neighbourhood has united with his own, he should still maintain his true character by assigning to each respective duty the degree of prominence to which it is entitled. And while, on the other hand, he is called upon occasionally to perform functions which approximate to those of medical men, he should not delude himself into the helief that his standing in society will be elevated in proportion as he induces the public to consider him a Doctor.

TRANSACTIONS

OF

THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY.

PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING,

JUNE 8th.

MR. PAYNE, VICE-PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR.

THE Chairman said, that in commencing the second year's Proceedings of the Society it would, perhaps, be expected of him, in the official capacity with which he had again been invested, to make some allusion to the past progress and future prospects of their scientific meetings. In looking at what they had done during the past year, he thought he might congratulate his brethren, not only upon the amount of valuable information which had been communicated at their meetings, but upon the manner in which it had been brought forward, and in which their discussions had been uniformly conducted. Many interesting papers had been furnished, and the greater part of them by members of their own body, who, had it not been for these meetings, would probably never have thought of making public the subjects of their communications. Two months had elapsed since they last met together, and during this time the Society had assumed a more mature character. The School of Pharmacy had been opened with a course of lectures on Medical Botany, and the attendance was such as to justify the belief, that the advantages of the institution were fully appreciated. He had no doubt that the lectures in the autumn would be still more numerously attended; and that these, together with the scientific meetings, would tend to confer a lasting benefit upon their members and the community at large. He must, however, impress upon the minds of all present, that to the Members generally the Council were obliged to look for the matter to be brought forward at these meetings; and he trusted that they should be enabled to maintain, if not to increase the interest and importance of these occasions for their mutual improvement. He introduced to the notice of the meeting, a paper

ON THE ACTION OF CARBONATE OF POTASH ON GUM RESINS.

BY MR. HULSE.

SOME years since, my attention was drawn to the action of carbonate of potash on myrrh, which induced me to try its effect

in reducing other gum resins, and the result was perfectly satisfactory. The intrinsic value and utility of this alkaline carbonate as an agent, when used according to the formule hereafter referred to, will become manifest to the Practitioner and to the Pharmaceutist, especially in the preparation of the compound mixture of iron, the compound pills of iron, the compound galbanum pills, and, indeed, every other mixture and pill which contains a gummo-resinous ingredient in its composition.

With regard to myrrh, if one part of carbonate of potash be added to two parts of myrrh in the lump, and rubbed together, the alkali produces complete saponification; and if to this be added medicated or distilled water, we obtain an elegant emulsion of myrrh, and nearly the whole of the gum resin is retained in suspension, which would not be the case without the aid of the carbonate of potash. If the compound mixture of iron is prepared by triturating the myrrh with carbonate of potash, then with the usual proportion of sugar, using the raw instead of refined, adding first the rose water, then the sulphate of iron, powdered, and, lastly, the spirit of nutmeg, it will not be an unsightly mixture, and the precipitate will be very trifling.

Again, in the compound pill of iron, if carbonate of potash is used instead of carbonate of soda, and raw or muscovado sugar in lieu of the refined, a pill mass can be compounded with less trouble than by following the college formula, and which will retain a convenient pilular consistency for any reasonable period. Take of

Myrrh in lump, two drachms, reduce it to powder in an iron mortar by Carbonate of potash, one drachm, then add

Sulphate of iron, powdered, one drachm,

Raw sugar, one drachm. Mix, and beat all into a mass, without any liquid. Attention to this last remark is necessary, for the addition of any liquid renders the mass too soft, the raw sugar being sufficient to bring it to a proper consistence.

The solubility of this pill is such, that after having been made six months, I put two pills, of five grains each, into a glass of water, about the temperature of the stomach, and they were completely disintegrated in the course of two hours. If water will thus serve to dissolve these iron bullets, as they are sometimes termed, we may expect the fluid of the stomach would have a much quicker action upon them.

I will now refer to that hitherto troublesome preparation, the compound galbanum pill. This pill, which to most gentlemen present has ever been an annoyance, can be as easily and as readily prepared as the preceding one, and becomes as tractable and as convenient for making into pills as any other mass. Without presuming to deviate materially from the instructions given in the Pharmacopoeia, I proceed as follows:

Asafoetida, half a drachm. Triturate these with two drachms of carbonate of potash, in an iron mortar, until the whole are sufficiently reduced, add Raw sugar, two drachms, and beat all together into a mass, without any liquid, which mass will retain its consistency for any reasonable period.

The pill of aloes with myrrh, compound squill pill, compound rhubarb pill, and other similar preparations, will be considerably improved if made with the assistance of carbonate of potash and raw sugar; but with every other than the compound galbanum pill and compound pill of iron a small portion of water must be used.

The raw sugar (saccharum non-purificatum), as an ingredient in compound pill of iron, is decidedly preferable to the refined, which alone will not form a mass.

In all pill masses and mixtures containing gum resins, the Pharmacopolist will find it preferable to use ingredients that have been powdered in his own premises.

To show how readily the dispenser may obtain these in the greatest purity, I have placed upon the table samples of six of the most valuable medicinal gum resins, reduced to powder by carbonate of potash with great facility; their odour and flavour are particularly good; but the colour of some of them is not so bright as when obtained from the wholesale Druggist.

In examining the solubility of gum resins in water with the aid of carbonate of potash, I find them to vary considerably. Myrrh is the most soluble, ammoniacum is next, sagapenum third, while galbanum and asafoetida do not appear to be much, if at all, assisted by it. In galbanum there is a second stratum of precipitate, very flocculent, lying upon one more dense, but that is not the case with any other; and I question if it would be found so invariably in every sample of the gum, for the analysis of gum resins is differently stated by Chemists, evidently owing to differences in their qualities and composition.

This subject leads me to notice the practice of some of our brethren who keep, ready prepared, an emulsion of myrrh, for the purpose of dispensing Griffiths's mixture more quickly. This is very objectionable, inasmuch as the emulsion by keeping becomes thin, and on mixing the other substances, a rapid precipitation takes place, leaving the bottle more than half-filled with a nearly transparent fluid.