will. When your fountain begins to splutter, let out the gas through a vent found on each soda fountain until the water flows; if air is in the pipes, this will remedy the trouble; if caused by a foreign substance, take the faucet apart and remove it; uncouple the pipes if necessary. Never make up a supply of syrups to last more than two days; chocolate, cream, pineapple, and strawberry are liable to ferment, unless you add a preservative, which should never be done. Don't use artificial flavors, when you can buy the real fruit juices so cheap; there is no excuse for it. Never hurry a customer, or show that you are in a hurry to serve him, or get him out; give him plenty of time; often a customer buys a glass of soda water to get a chance to sit down and rest. If you are using a copper drainer, use a solution composed of oxalic acid 8 ounces, water 1 gallon; sprinkle powdered pumice stone over the drainer, using about 2 ounces of the oxalic acid solution, and scour with a hand scrub until bright, using plenty of water to remove all traces of poison. Keep your silverware bright. If using crushed fruit, make no more than you can dispose of within two or three days; use half crushed fruit and half diluted rock candy syrup. Never place your carbonated bottled waters where the sun will strike them, as they will lose some of the carbonic acid gas and taste flat. In using concentrated fruit syrups, any reliable make will do; go by the directions on the label. In serving phosphates, give a 12-ounce glass; don't be stingy with the water, it costs little, and a customer ordering a plain drink wants water-not fizz. In serving ice cream or sundaes, be as neat as possible; furnish a glass of ice water and a paper napkin with each one. Customers appreciate all these little details. Even though you may not make ex

Teach your clerks, says a writer in Printer's Ink-teach them the cash value of that short. word "Mister" when coupled with the name of a customer-particularly the chance or occasional customer who does not expect to be called by name. "Have you ever been recognized and called by name in a store, and by a clerk with whom you did not feel at all acquainted-by a clerk whom you had no recollection of having met before? Didn't it please you, in spite of yourself? Didn't you warm a little toward the man and the store? Don't encourage any undue familiarity, but do everything you can to impress upon your selling force the importance, to them and to you, of remembering and correctly connecting names and faces, and of using names at the right times and places. It is particularly uncomplimentary and provoking to a regular, though perhaps infrequent, customer to have the clerk ask his name and address time after time; especially by contrast with the clerk in another store who says: 'Same address, I suppose, Mr. Jones, number fourteen West Broad street?'

"All other things being equal, people prefer to trade where they feel acquainted; and the salesman who wants to make the most of himself will cultivate a memory for the names and faces of customers, and, if possible, remember the customer's tastes in the kind of goods carried in his department."

Fuse the lanolin in a warm mortar, wait until it is nearly to the congealing point, but is still liquid, add the mercury and triturate thoroughly for about five minutes, and longer if necessary, and then add the olive oil gradually with constant stirring.

It is desirable that the mortar be warm, thereby allowing a gradual cooling of the lanolin rather than a rapid congealing. The ease and rapidity with which the mercury is extinguished by this method cannot be compared with any other extemporaneous process within Mr. Dunning's knowledge. Furthermore, the mercury is in a fine state of division, as is shown by an examination under the microscope. The author feels that with machinery, and in making large quantities of the ointment, the percentage amount of the anhydrous lanolin could be greatly reduced.

It is of course understood that the method can be used with other mercury products than the olive oil mixture. It is just as adaptable, for instance, to a 50-per-cent ointment of mercury in cold cream. The lanolin is the agent which does the business.

The New Formula for Syrup of Wild Cherry.

Joseph W. England (American Journal of Pharmacy) believes the formula for syrup of wild cherry in the new Pharmacopoeia is inferior to that published in the edition of 1890. The quantity of aqueous percolate has been reduced a little more than half, and Mr. England therefore thinks the present syrup exhibits a "marked decrease in strength." Furthermore, no glycerin is used in the menstruum, an omission which he deems a mistake. The addition of glycerin to the menstruum serves a very useful purpose in preventing fermentation in the drug during the process of percolation, particularly in the summer season. To add the glycerin afterwards, as the present formula directs, "is of no service save to give 'body' to the product, and for this purpose additional sugar could have been used, and the quantity of aqueous percolate proportionately increased with resulting advantage to the finished product."

Under the circumstances, therefore, Mr. England recommends the use of the 1890 formula, slightly modified, as follows:

Wild cherry, in No. 20 powder... 5 oz. av. (150 Gm.).
Sugar, granulated
.24 oz. av. (720 Gm.).
Glycerin.
4 fluidounces (125 Cc.).
Water, a sufficient quantity to make. 2 pints (1000 Cc.).

Mix the glycerin with 10 fluidounces of water (300 Cc.). Moisten the wild cherry with a sufficient quantity of the liquid, and macerate for twenty-four hours in a covered vessel; then pack it firmly in a cylindrical percolator, and pour on the remainder of the menstruum.

When the liquid has disappeared from the surface, follow it by water until the percolate measures 15 fluidounces (450 Cc.). Dissolve the sugar in the percolate by agitation, without heat, strain, and pour enough water through the strainer to make the product measure 2 pints (1000 Cc.). Mix thoroughly.

Physicians Need to be Reminded.—

Pharmacists would do well, says the American Druggist, to call the attention of the physicians of their neighborhood to the alcoholic character of aromatic elixir, for they evidently need to be reminded that the elixir contains nearly as high a percentage of alcohol as is contained in brandy or whisky, and when it is ordered as a vehicle for a sedative the physician is likely to be disappointed in the results. This is pointed out in a timely article by E. G. Heffner, of Lock Haven, Pa., who also calls attention to the danger of prescribing the elixir as a vehicle in mixtures containing chloral hydrate and potassium bromide. Such mixtures are prone to undergo decomposition in the presence of an alcoholic preparation, the result being the formation of the dangerous body known as chloral alcoholate, which floats on the top of the mixture and exposes the patient to the risk of getting the whole of the chloral in the first dose or two. The necessity therefore of informing physicians of the composition of the elixir need hardly be further emphasized.

Gangrene from Carbolic Acid.—

From time to time reports have appeared of cases of gangrene following the surgical dressing of the extremities with weak solutions of carbolic acid. To these Cotte (Presse Méd.) adds another, that of a girl who by the direction of a pharmacist applied such a solution for several days to one of her fingers. The application diminished the pain and produced anesthesia, but ultimately caused a gangrenous change. The finger when examined was quite black, and Cotte had no doubt that the carbolic lotion was responsible for its condition. The necrosis was complete, and the gangrene was of the dry type. The author points out that the number of cases of this character which have been reported is now quite numerous. When a finger, for instance, is treated with the lotion, destructive action may begin at a varying length of time afterward; the skin becomes yellow, brown, then brownishblack, and finally perfectly black. It is insensible and mummified. A sharp line of demarcation usually develops at the end of two or three weeks without any elevation of temperature, and the necrotic part separates with an irregular line of separation.

Syrup of Senega.

Paul Caldwell (Druggists' Circular) remarks that syrup of senega is the most expensive syrup in the Pharmacopoeia, and yet ordinarily the most unsightly. The Pharmacopoeia directs the use of potassium hydroxide in making the fluidextract, yet this does not make it the more miscible with syrup; on the contrary it increases its immiscibility by making more of a soap of it. Here is a way to prepare a presentable syrup of pharmacopoeial standard: Add 5 per cent of the finished product, of alcohol, and the same amount of glycerin, to the fluidextract, and water to make 500 Cc.; filter through magnesium carbonate, and return the filtrate to the filter until it

passes entirely soluble in water; dissolve the sugar in the filtrate and strain. The alcohol dissolves the saponaceous matter, and the glycerin prevents the fermentation of the pectinous matter.

How to Pour Hot Liquid Into Cold Glass.

Some method of pouring a hot liquid into a cold bottle without breaking it has been sought by various experimentalists. C. G. Coumbe, writing in Merck's Report, says he has discovered a very simple plan: He first takes each container and examines it for bad flaws or visible cracks. When assured of its soundness, both by sight and by ringing the glass with his knuckles while holding the bottle loosely by the neck, he places it on a piece of wet cloth. The cloth may be soaked in either hot or cold water-it doesn't matter which. The only essential is that the cloth be wet. The bottle is stood upon the cloth, and the hot liquid may then be poured into the container through a tin funnel with impunity.

A PHARMACEUTICAL OVERTURE,

If proof were needed that pharmaceutical editors are clever folk, it would be supplied by a recent achievement of J. Winchell Forbes, editor of Drugs and Sundries. Mr. Forbes composed an overture for rendition at the recent annual meeting of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, and it was greeted with many expressions of pleasure. The meeting was held at Cedar Point, and this summer resort possessed too few musicians for Mr. Forbes's purposes. After many trials and tribulations, however, he succeeded in getting together a makeshift orchestra, and "Romance and Ragtime" was presented to the audience. The difficulties experienced by the editor-composer in getting his orchestra together are humorously described in the August number of Drugs and Sundries. Success brings its own reward, and Mr. Forbes was afterwards asked to compose an "American Pharmaceutical Association grand march" for the Indianapolis meeting early this month. It was played at the president's reception on Monday evening, September 3. In the meantime "Romance

and Ragtime" has been condensed for the pianoforte from the orchestral score, and Mr. Forbes may possibly have a few copies left for presentation to interested pharmacists.

PROFESSOR OLDBERG THE SECOND.

Prof. Arne Oldberg, son of Prof. Oscar Oldberg, is rapidly attaining success as a teacher and composer of music. As the professor of "piano and composition" in the Northwestern University School of Music he has become well known during the last few years, while concertos, overtures, and other compositions from his pen are rapidly attaining a wide standing. During the past summer Professor Oldberg has remained at his home in Evanston, Illinois, working on the orchestral parts of a new overture and completing the score of a symphony. The former will be played by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra next season. Members of the American Pharmaceutical Association will remember that Professor Oldberg attended the Minnetonka meeting in 1897, and they will recall with pleasure his pianoforte playing on that occasion.

MEDICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL LATIN.

A new book on "Medical and Pharmaceutical Latin" has appeared in England. The author is Reginald R. Bennett, pharmacist and teacher of pharmacy at the University College Hospital in London, and late demonstrator of pharmaceutics to the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The book is intended for the use of students of pharmacy and medicine, and is described as "a guide to the grammatical construction and translation of physicians' prescriptions, including extensive vocabularies and an appendix upon foreign prescriptions." There is an appreciative introduction by Henry G. Greenish, F.I.C., F.L.S., professor of pharmaceutics to the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The book is published in London by J. and A. Churchill, at 7 Great Marlborough Street. The American agents are P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. The book is bound in cloth, contains 442 pages, and costs $2.40.

A COMPEND OF MATERIA MEDICA,

Dr. Samuel O. L. Potter's "Compend of Materia Medica, Therapeutics, and Prescription Writing" has again appeared in a new edition. This is the seventh, and is based upon the last Pharmacopoeia. In addition to the pharmacopoeial articles, however, consideration is given to many unofficial remedies. Dr. Potter is well known as an author of several text-books on medicine. The present work is published in Philadelphia by P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1012 Wainut Street. The book is cloth bound, contains 292 pages, and costs $1.00.

The BULLETIN is in receipt of an interesting book of views illustrating the Scio College of Pharmacy. The building has been amplified during the present summer, and the institution now has nine distinct laboratories, four junior and five senior, with separate lecture rooms for each class. The illustrations not only show the excellent equipment of the Scio College, but suggest an attractive environment.

Monthly review by OLIVER A. FARWELL.

False Frangula Bark.—

The Pharmacognostical Institute of the University of Vienna, according to the Pharmaceutical Journal, has recently examined a false frangula bark, and reports that it probably comes from Rhamnus Carniolica. While closely resembling the official frangula bark, the older pieces may readily be dis

uric acid. When eaten in reasonable quantities it does not produce any disturbances of bodily functions, is readily digested, and easily tolerated, even by invalids. Undoubtedly there are some people who are poisoned by it just as there are some who are poisoned by sweetbreads, mutton, strawberries, etc., but on physiological grounds there is nothing to be said against a moderate indulgence in this very popular vegetable food.

contains stone cells; the younger bark may be distinguished by the fact that the medullary rays are about three cells (four to seven) wider than in the frangula bark, where they are only four cells or less wide.

Mucilage from Irish Moss.

According to the Pharmaceutical Journal, a good mucilage, capable of taking the place of acacia mucilage, can be made from Irish moss. Thirty parts of Irish moss should be heated in one thousand parts of water at from 71° to 90° C. until all the mucilage has been extracted. After removing impurities, it should be mixed with starch rubbed smooth with water, in the proportion of 1 to 2. This mixture should be spread on oiled plates and dried at a temperature of 90° C. This dried product, when softened in cold water and then heated, forms a thick mucilage.

Tecoma Mollis.

Tecoma mollis H. B. K. is a Mexican plant of the Bignonia family, Bignoniacea, which is used to a considerable extent by the Mexicans as a medicine. A quantity of the drug was sent to the U. S. Department of Agriculture for analysis, and it was found that the plant did not contain an alkaloid or other principle common to medicinal plants. The plant is bitter, however, and it may have the stimulating tonic effect of other bitters.

A New Remedy for Epilepsy.

In a recent number of the Chicago Medical Times Dr. J. A. Waska, of Cincinnati, reports the disappearance of an oncoming attack of epilepsy immediately after taking a liberal dose of peroxide of hydrogen. Five cases were treated with this remedy with good results.

Is Asparagus Wholesome?—

According to the Lancet asparagus ushers in the season of fresh vegetables, and there is no other vegetable whose flavor is so highly esteemed as that of tender asparagus. Chemical analysis cannot explain the flavor, but assigns a highly nutritious value to the vegetable. It is one of those peculiar examples of a food that contains more water than milk yet is a solid; the asparagus head contains 93 per cent of water, being only one per cent behind that of lettuce and five per cent more than milk; 30 per cent of the dried vegetable, however, is nitrogenous matter. Amongst these is a purin body which makes asparagus harmful to those of a gouty tendency. A large consumption of asparagus, like beer, which also contains

In this department Mr. B. S. Cooban, of Chicago, a practical pharmacist of large experience in the manufacture and sale of druggists' specialties, will endeavor (1) to provide formulas that will "work" to subscribers who ask for them, to (2) give advice concerning labels and packages, to (3) render suggestions regarding advertising methods, and (4) not less important, to publish in turn formulas for successful specialties which readers themselves are cordially invited to contribute. All correspondence should be addressed to "Specialties Department," BULLETIN OF PHARMACY, P. O. Box 484, Detroit, Michigan; and all inquirers should conform to the conditions which are stated over the adjoining department of “Queries.”

"I will greatly appreciate any suggestions along this line. If I had a good preparation I could make a good run on it."

Our opinion on soothing syrups was plainly stated in this department, page 350, 1905. Your State seems to be a fertile country for the soothing syrup business. We have had several inquiries along this line from there, and it is also the home of the "Babies' Friend (?)."

The formula which you send is supposed to be that of castoria. It is a good laxative with anthelmintic properties; why not let it alone as such? Your proposed addition would convert it into a therapeutic horror.

A good remedy for flatulence, colic, and minor ailments of children can be made as follows:

Fluidextract of catnip ..2 fluidounces. Fluidextract of fennel seed. ..1 fluidounce. Simple elixir, enough to make.....16 fluidounces. Mix and filter.

The dose will be from 8 drops to one drachm.

Mix and direct a teaspoonful three times a day.

The S. Drug Co. remarks that "their competitor filled the above prescription and got a clear solution"-a thing which they themselves were unable to do.

On the face of things it seems impossible to dispense this mixture as a clear product, with everything in solution. The difficulty resides in the relative insolubility of the ammonium chloride in alcohol. If water instead of alcohol were employed as the diluent, nearly all of the ammonium salt would be dissolved-all but about one drachm of it. Cutting the amount of the salt down to 7 drachms, therefore, and substituting water for alcohol, it would be possible to dispense the mixture as a clear solution-but not otherwise. Of course,

such a radical change should not be thought of unless the prescriber's consent were gained first.

Druggists and the New Congressional Pure Food and Drug Law.

The BULLETIN has received two queries from its readers touching upon different aspects of the newly enacted pure food and drug law as it applies to the preparations made by the pharmacist.

H.A. K. writes as follows: "Will druggists who put up their own headache powders be compelled to print the formula on the outside label, or state the fact that they contain acetanilide, according to the pure food and drug law?"

In the first place let it be understood that the congressional pure food and drug law, like any congressional statute, affects only interstate commerce, the District of Columbia, and the territories. No retail druggist, selling all of his goods in his own State, is concerned with the law at all. Manufacturers of proprietary articles would not be involved were it not for the fact that the great majority of their sales come under the head of interstate commerce.

If, as might possibly happen, H. A. K. is likely to sell his headache powders to customers in another State than his own, then he would have to comply with the pure food and drug act. He would not need to print the formula of the product on the label, for this is not stipulated in the law. All that it would be necessary for him to do would be to

This is for bleaching the skin, and let me ask what would be necessary to put on the label. Any information will be greatly appreciated."

The only substance in this formula affected by the congressional act is alcohol. The label should state the content of this ingredient. The amount of alcohol in the formula is insignificant; furthermore, the character of the preparation is such that the percentage of alcohol is of no importance anyway so far as the unconscious consumption of liquor is concerned; but nevertheless the law must be adhered to in letter as well as in spirit. As previously stated, however, no druggist need conform to the congressional act except in those rare instances where his products are sold across the border in another State.

Water-glass as a Preservative for Eggs.

E. N. F.-The Department of Agriculture at Washington recommends water-glass as the most effective method for keeping eggs, next to cold storage. In a recent Bulletin it says: "Water-glass is commonly sold in two forms: a syrupy liquid, about the consistency of molasses, and a powder. The more popular liquid form is sometimes sold wholesale as low as 134 cents per pound in carboy lots. The retail price varies, though ten cents per pound seems a common price. Dissolve one part of the syrup thick water-glass in ten parts, by measure, of water. Much of the water-glass offered for sale is