LETTERS

BREAKING INTO THE DRUG GAME. To the Editors:

There appeared in the BULLETIN last year a number of papers on "Why I Became a Druggist," but I don't think any of the writers had better reason for entering the profession than I did.

Way back in the eighties, when I was only a lad, I put in some of the longest hours and hardest licks that ever fell to the lot of any boy. Getting up in the morning at four o'clock and doing the chores by lantern-light; cutting cordwood and splitting rails; plowing, harrowing, drilling, harvesting and threshing wheat; cutting, shocking, and shucking corn-in the field all day from sunrise to sunset-was enough preliminary training to enable a boy to stand almost anything that might be shoved on him in a drug store.

But when, lastly, as my high-school work on a farm, I had sixty-five steers to feed every day-grubbing shock-corn out of the frozen ground with a hoe, and hauling it three miles. twice a day, seven days a week, in rain or shine —it didn't take much persuasion to induce me to take a vacancy that offered in our village general store.

Here were sold groceries, hardware, wallpaper, house paints, and dry goods, as well as a few drugs now and then. The store had been my loafing place-in the little spare time that came to me and I always took considerable interest in watching the clerk "experiment" by grinding together chlorate of potash and sulphur in a mortar, or liberating hydrogen gas and lighting it, secundem artem.

When he left town to take a position in a city drug store I fell heir to his job. Please notice I got a job and he got a position. One winter's experience with my job was enough to convince me that if I ever expected to get a position I had better be looking around for a new boss.

My next job was in another small country town where I took charge of the village doctor's little store while he looked after his practice. Here I had to stay and become a druggist, because after arriving I didn't have enough money left to take the next train out, which I certainly would have done, for it was about the gloomiest place I ever saw.

By the time I had money enough coming to get away with I had read the dispensatory from cover to cover. Then I, too, got a position in the city.

I used to have to pinch myself every five minutes in order to keep awake, for it was mighty hard, at first, to get used to staying up half the night. But right there was where my farm training came in handy, for when it comes to long hours and hard work, the farm has a drug store "skinned a mile”—and then some. Kansas City, Kans. J. W. GIESBURG.

Should the name of the poison be mentioned in the newspaper when an account of a suicide or accidental poisoning is given? I am of the opinion that it should not.

The very fact that merely the giving of the name of the death-dealing drug in connection with such a report serves to bring it before the public and to familiarize the name to a greater extent should be enough to condemn the practice. Take, for example, the widely-published account of the unfortunate mistake of the Atlanta banker, who took bichloride of mercury tablets thinking they were aspirin, or some such harmless medicine. That article was prominently displayed by the press, together with the name of the poison-and what has been the result? Never before have there been so many suicides and attempted suicides by means of this deadly poison.

To be sure we have poison laws, and they in themselves are good. But would it not be better to remove the names of deadly poisons from public print, just as we remove them from the front part of our stores and place them in our back rooms, as far as possible from public gaze and idle curiosity?

USING UP SHOP-WORN STATIONERY. To the Editors:

It may be of interest to BULLETIN readers, especially those who have been unable to dispose of their own stock of shop-worn box stationery, to learn of the method I use for getting rid of that item.

Regardless of color and size, I remove the sheets of folded note-paper from the unsalable boxes, open them out flat and take them, together with the envelopes, to the local printer, who places my imprint on the stationery at a very low price, as all the stock is furnished.

HERE'S A NEW ONE!

To the Editors:

While calling on Mr. Clarence M. Dorsey last week a little girl brought in the attached note to the clerk. Mr. Dorsey and I went into consultation, but couldn't agree on what was wanted. After quite a lengthy talk with the

10 Fire devel

girl, however, it was decided that she wanted 10 cents' worth of fumigating pastilles. This guess was correct, as I afterwards discovered. Pittsburg, Pa. D. B. YOUNG.

BRIGHT SPOTS IN THE DAY.

To the Editors:

Two calls that we have had recently did much to brighten up the day's routine for us. Here is the first one:

A little girl presented a slip on which was. written "A bottle of Bromosyler." I thought for a moment, and then asked if it was to be used for the relief of headaches. "Yes," she said, and a bottle of Bromo-Seltzer was correct.

The second slip, brought in by a little boy, called for "5 cents Parick." With a little help from me, he decided that "paregoric" was what his mother wanted.

I don't want to miss a single BULLETIN. It's the greatest help a man has in business. HARRY A. VOLLMER. Bokoshe, Okla. The BULLETIN is my ideal drug journal, and I do not want to miss a single issue. J. C. BILLINGSLEY. Tulsa, Okla.

I can get along without electric lights and street-cars, but the BULLETIN is indispensable. W. B. ILIFF. Haxtun, Colo. The BULLETIN OF PHARMACY is the best drug journal I get, and I don't want to miss a EDWIN BALDWIN.

copy.

Danville, Iowa.

It certainly is a live magazine-one to which every druggist must look forward eagerly each month. Z. KOLLER.

Oak Park, Ill.

I can't see how we druggists can get along without it. It is the best we can get. Let the good work go on. C. F. GILL.

El Dorado, Kansas.

PRACTICAL PHARMACY

The Stability of Nitroglycerin Tablets.

In a paper read before the 1915 meeting of the American Chemical Society, Wilbur L. Scoville told of a number of experiments made to determine the stability of nitroglycerin tablets.

Tablets of nitroglycerin for medicinal use are manufactured from a 10- to 20-per-cent alcoholic solution, or from a 20-per-cent paste mixture containing sugarof-milk or calcium carbonate.

A series of sample tablets, freshly made and tested. was set aside for observation, being tested at intervals during a period of 31⁄2 years. These tablets represented the usual market and were stored under varying conditions, similar to those likely to be encountered in different stores.

At the end of the 31⁄2 years the tests showed that all tablets containing less than 1/100 grain each of nitroglycerin had deteriorated, and, also, all those made from spirit of nitroglycerin. Tablets made from the paste, of 1/100 grain or over, maintained their strength. Two explanations of this are possible:

1. The solution may yield a finer attenuation of the nitroglycerin, exposing more surface and favoring volatilization. The deterioration of the tablets containing less than 1/100 grain each bears out this view, since in such tablets the nitroglycerin must be more highly attenuated than in those of a higher grainage, to secure uniform dosage.

2. A second possible explanation is found in the two forms in which nitroglycerin is known to exist-a labile form melting at 2.8°C. and a stable form melting at 13.5°C. Freshly prepared nitroglycerin usually crystallizes in the labile form, but on long standing, particularly after having been once frozen, it tends to change to the stable form.

The nitroglycerin used in making the tablets was from one lot of paste and four lots of solution purchased at different times. The various lots were stored in a building in which the temperature was very close to that of the outer atmosphere. The paste passed through two winters before being used in the tablets, while the solution passed through one winter's storage. In Detroit a temperature of a few degrees below 0° F. (-18°C.) occurs in most winters a few times.

In the paste form the nitroglycerin is in the condition most conducive to forming the stable isomeride, while in the alcoholic solution the conditions may be unfavorable to the formation of the stable form. Thus the nitroglycerin in those tablets which deteriorated may have been in the labile condition, with a greater tendency to decomposition than the others.

The work on the isomerides of nitroglycerin is too recent to prove whether it is a factor in the deterioration of nitroglycerin in tablets or not, but these three facts are established:

1. Tablets containing less than 1/100 grain of nitroglycerin lose strength very markedly on keeping.

2. Tablets made from an alcoholic solution of nitroglycerin are less stable than those made from a paste.

3. It is probable that a nitroglycerin which has been slowly frozen and slowly thawed is better for tablet use than one freshly made.

A New Way to Detect Poisons.

J. J. Dobbie, F.R.S., the principal chemist of the English government laboratories at London, says the Detroit Tribune, has recently concentrated public attention upon the value of the spectroscope as a means of detecting poisons such as strychnine, cocaine, morphine, and similar dangerous drugs.

By throwing the ultra-violet part of the spectrum from such a source of light as is obtainable from sparking such a metal as iron, through the lenses of a quartz spectroscope, the lines of these drugs can be distinctly located. Each drug, it has been found, produces a characteristic kind of lines.

Hereafter when a person dies under circumstances suspicious of poison, the mixture of his or her stomach contents or other tissues may be taken to a physical laboratory and exposed to the quartz-lensed spectroscope with a sparking light from iron. If any of these poisons are present their characteristic lines will show in the ultra-violet part of the spectrum. A quartzlensed spectroscope is used instead of glass, because glass cuts out the ultra-violet rays.

A minute trace of poison can now be detected in this revolutionary fashion. Even as little as one fivehundredths of a grain of strychnine was thus found by Dr. Dobbie.

1 fluidounce. 1⁄2 fluidounce.

...q. s.

Aquæ menthæ piperitæ, q. s. ad...8 fluid ounces.

Misce; signa: A teaspoonful in water every three hours.

The official oleoresin of copaiba (copaiba U. S. P.) is here intended. It is to be mixed with two drachms of powdered acacia in a mortar and emulsified by adding one-half ounce of the peppermint water, triturating lightly but actively, then gradually adding the remainder of the peppermint water, the fluidextract of glycyrrhiza, and the spirit of nitrous ether.

A better method is to replace the powdered acacia with six fluidrachms of mucilage of acacia. This is placed in the bottle, flowed around on the sides; the copaiba is added; and the bottle is then well shaken. Then one-half ounce of the peppermint water is added, and the bottle again shaken. The remainder of the peppermint water is added gradually, and lastly the fluidextract and the spirit, the bottle being shaken well after each addition.

Don'ts For Pharmacists.

W. Johnston, Secretary of the Chemists' Defense Association, communicates to the Anti-Cutting Record the following "Don'ts" compiled from his experience of claims arising from accidents. The collection, reprinted in the Chemist and Druggist of England, is intended for members of the Association, but it should be generally useful: