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The A. Ph. A. Branch at Denver, Colo., has been working for the past year with a very laudable ambition to establish a pharmaceutical library for the use of its members.

At its April meeting the library was formally turned over to the Branch by the Library Committee. The books are catalogued on card indexes and number some 150 volumes, beside a number of pamphlets, reports, drug journals, etc.

Both the Branch and the Library Committee are to be congratulated on the successful establishment of such a precedent for other branches and associations which do not have access to a scientific library.

Dr. Franklin P. Mall, Professor of Anatomy at Johns Hopkins University, in writing of the alleged inferiority of woman's brain to man's, is quoted as saying: "I have had at least twenty years' experience with more than one thousand picked college graduates in biological teaching. No concessions have been made to the women, and as a group they have invariably stood above the average. This year we shall graduate eighty men and ten women; two men and four women lead the class." Dr. Howell, Professor of Physiology in the same institution, says: "If anyone cares to claim that the brain of woman is inferior, he must seek the evidence of his belief in his personal experience or in the archives of history-certainly not among the sober records of science."

The amended legislation in New York State in regard to the hours of labor for drug clerks-taking them from the jurisdiction of the State labor laws and giving them over to the regulation of the Board of Pharmacy, has at least settled the question so far as New York is concerned, as to whether pharmacy is a trade or profession. The Supreme Court held that the laws regulating the number of working hours in a mercantile establishment do not apply to pharmacy, because the pharmacists were engaged in a professional employment.

Reports from Washington foretell the ultimate adoption of adoption of one-cent-letter postage. It is said the postal officials are ready to adopt the proposition as soon as the revenue which will be lost by such action can be made up from some other part of the system.

The magazines and newspapers will be the 'goat' in this deal and undoubtedly many small publications will be forced out of business, even though in their limited field they may be of more real worth to their readers than some of the popular magazines with their enormous nationwide circulations.

The magazine business seems to occupy the same enviable position in postal matters as the drug business does in legislation.

Governor Glynn, of New York, has vetoed the bill fathered by the Christian. Scientists to permit the general practice of drugless healing. He gives as his reason for vetoing the bill that it was so loosely worded as to let down the bars to all kinds of quacks and charlatans limited the practice of mental healing to prey upon the public. Had the bill by Christian Scientists to those who are believers in Christian Science, it would, no doubt, have become a law.

Not many retail druggists are interested, so far as their own immediate business is concerned, in the toll rate through the Panama Canal, but since the new route will save considerable time in shipments from some foreign countries and from different parts of our own country, it would not be unreasonable to hope that the saving thus effected on many drug store items of foreign origin might be handed on down to the ultimate consumer by a reduction in prices.

According to government reports, an average size steamer requires 65 to 90 days for the trip around the Horn from Vancouver to New York. Through the canal a saving of 45 days may be made. Figuring this at an operating expense of $500 per day, means an actual money saving of $22,500, while the toll through. the canal for such a ship would run from $9,000 to $12,000. Further gain may be calculated from the increased number of trips that may be made in a given time.

Since the first of the year, several pharmaceutical journals have had their editorial sanctums disturbed by a change of editors.

Following the resignation last year of Mr. C. M. Carr, editor of the N. A. R. D. Journal for many years, Mr. Hugh Craig, of the staff of the Druggists Circular, was chosen to succeed Mr. Carr, and entered on his new duties in January.

A month or two ago, Mr. Francis B. Hays, long time editor of the Druggists Circular, was forced to quit his editorial

work owing to a serious affliction of the eyes. He is now sojourning in North Carolina and Dr. H. V. Arny, formerly of the Cleveland School of Pharmacy and now Professor of Pharmacy in the New York College of Pharmacy, has been appointed to take Mr. Hays' place.

Still more recently, Dr. J. H. Beal, on account of ill health, has resigned the position of Editor of the Journal of the A. Ph. A., and as General Secretary of the Association. Mr. E. C. Marshall, of Boston, is now Acting Secretary and Editor of the Journal.

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL ON PHARMACY AND CHEMISTRY.

Petroleum has been in use as a medicine from time immemorial. It was known to Herodotus 400 years before Christ and is mentioned by Plutarch, Dioscorides, Pliny and other early writers. It was extensively used by the Arabians and evidently played an important part in the practice of medicine in India, being known to the Bengalese as Muthe Katel. The raw product was the substance used in earlier times and differed much in character. and composition, as obtained from different sources.

As an internal remedy it was early employed in chronic pulmonary affections, in obstinate skin diseases, in rheumatism and for the expelling of tapeworms. It was extensively used for these several purposes in France under the name "Oleum Gabianum" and in North America as "Seneka oil." The internal use of the refined product may be traced to a patent granted to Robert A. Chesebrough, of New York, in June, 1872, for the manufacture of a "new and useful product from petroleum, named vaseline." This name was originally applied only to a semisolid preparation, but later a liquid product known as liquid vaseline was marketed and for a time exploited as a cure for coughs, colds, consumption and a number of other diseases and conditions.

The liquid petroleum has since become known under a variety of names, proprietary and otherwise, in addition to being used as a substitute or an adulterant for other, more costly, fats and oils. Some of the names applied to the product

A preparation similar to that official in the Pharmacopeia of the United States, as liquid petrolatum has been included in many, if not all, of the foreign pharmacopeias, the official title under which this preparation is recognized, being as follows:

Petrolatum liquidum, U. S. Pharmacopeia; Paraffinum liquidum, pharmacopeias of Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Servia, Italy, Hungary and Russia; Oleum Paraffinae, Spanish Pharmacopeia; Vasalinum liquidum, French Pharmacopeia, and Oleum vaselini (as a synonym) pharmacopeias of Denmark and Russia.

For pharmaceutical purposes, liquid petrolatum may be divided into two grades, the lighter or more limpid oil, used extensively as a vehicle for oil sprays, and the heavier, more viscid oil, generally recognized in European pharmacopeias and used as an ingredient of ointments and more recently as a remedy in the treatment of intestinal stasis.

Under petrolatum liquidum the U. S. P. recognizes a mixture of hydrocarbons, chiefly of the methane series, which occurrs as a colorless or very slightly yellowish, oily, transparent liquid without odor or taste and having a specific gravity of about 0.870 to 0.940 at 25 C. For the U. S. P. IX, it is proposed to change this requirement somewhat so as to have it apply to a transparent liquid free from flourescence, without odor or taste, and having a specific gravity of from 0.845 to 0.940 at 25 C.

The

Such a requirement would include all of the available paraffin oils irrespective of origin. The now commonly available commercial liquid petrolatum, used for pharmaceutical purposes, is practically colorless and all of the better grades are free from odor or taste. The specific gravity varies from 0.855 to 0.895. lighter oils, having a specific gravity of from 0.860 to 0.870, are usually preferred in the making of oil sprays or solutions of substances to be used as local applications. The product having a specific gravity above 0.875 evidently contains a considerable amount of dissolved solid paraffin which separates out at temperatures at or below 0 C., but readily dissolves again at temperatures above 10 C.

There is a considerable difference in the chemical composition of the paraffin oils obtained from various sources. The American oil consists largely of hydro

carbons of the methane series, while the Russian oil contains naphthenes or hydrocarbons of the benzene series, having the empirical composition of ethylene,

(CnH2n) which may be considered as hydrogenated aromatic hydrocarbons, though they behave with reagents very much in the same way as do the hydrocarbons of the methane series.

Mineral oils with a naphthene base are best suited for making white petrolatum, and at the present time the production of the colorless water-white liquid petrolatum appears to be confined largely or almost exclusively to the crude product of the Baku district of Russia, though it is asserted that it is now also made from the Hanover (Germany) crude oil and that some is being produced by "cracking" the white solid paraffin.

It is also said that the American oil can be made water-white, but that it is not being so produced at present for economic reasons; the yellowish oil, free from fluorescence, having a very wide sale, both as a lubricant and as a substitute for lard oil and other of the more costly lubricating oils.

From a pharmaceutical point of view it would appear important to note the physical characteristics of the oil and to insist on absence of color, absence of odor and taste, absence of acid and of alkali and a specific gravity in harmony with the purposes for which the oil is to be used.

During the past year or two liquid petrolatum has attracted considerable attention as a remedy in the treatment of intestinal stasis or chronic constipation, the practice of using it having been developed largely through its recommendation by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane and his associates. This use of liquid petrolatum and of petrolatum products. generally is by no means novel. N. A. Randolph of Philadelphia, was among the first to suggest its use for this purpose in an article published in 1885. Randolph also appears to have been the first to experiment with petrolatum and to determine its non-absorbability from the intestinal tract. In an article2 in 1884, he concludes that "pure petrolatum while entirely unirritating to the digestive tract, is valueless as a foodstuff."

1. Randolph, N. A.: Therap. Gaz., 1885, ix, 732. 2. Randolph, N. A.: Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc., Philadelphia, 1884, p. 281.