The experiments recorded by Randolph were evidently prompted by the fact that vaseline and a number of imitation products then on on the market were being sold as substitutes for lard and butter, and opinions regarding the food value of petroleum products appear to have differed very materially. Following the experiments of Randolph, Robert Hutchinson in 1899 made a series of experiments to demonstrate that petroleum, petrolatum, paraffin and related products were absolutely unassailable by any of the digestive fluids, despite the "large vogue that had of late years been given to various petroleum emulsions, chiefly by ingenious and unterrified advertising." He came to practically the same conclusions arrived at by Randolph fifteen years earlier and pointed out that "liquid paraffin in one sense may be regarded as an artificial intestinal mucus and might in that way have some value on certain forms of constipation."

William Duffield Robinson3 reports on the use of a perfectly refined colorless and odorless petrolatum, supposedly of American origin. He was able to show that all of the product passed unchanged through the intestinal tract and could be regained from the feces. In his conclusions he expressed the belief that the effect of the administration of these petroleum products is far more than as a simple intestinal lubricant. In over fifty selected cases in which nutrition, digestion and body-weight were impaired, and the purest oil administered in 1- or 2-dram doses each day for a period of from four to six months, there was in every instance an improvement of weight, health and feeling of wellbeing. The administration of refined paraffin oil gave no discomfort in any instance, even in cases in which nearly a pint was given in a few hours.

William Ewart' suggests liquid paraffin as a safe agent for the local treatment of the lesions in typhiod fever. He says in part: "Mineral oil, such as petrolatum or paraffin, is neither absorbed nor dissolved; therefore, after all absorbable ingestions are taken up by the lacteals, it will still remain in the bowel. In this way pure liquid paraffin is valuable, precisely because it is inert; moreover, it might some day, perhaps,

3. Robinson: William Duffield: Med. News, Ixxvii, 56. 4. Ewart, William: Brit. Med. Jour. 1902, ii, 1505.

be made the vehicle for effective topical remedies.

A. D. Schmidt' quotes Stubenrath as having given liquid paraffin in the treatment of chronic constipation, and he himself gave as much as 20 gm. of liquid paraffin to adults without observing any injurious effect whatever. He says, As a result of the administration of liquid paraffin, the feces are softened considerably and are found under the microscope to contain numerous minute globules of paraffin. He was, however, unable to recover from the feces the entire quantity of paraffin administered and believes that a certain portion of it, probably the fractions with a low boiling-point, are absorbed or possibly oxidized in the organism.

Maurice Vejux Tyrode also refers to the use of liquid petroleum in the treatment of constipation.

Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane in his recommendations of liquid petrolatum calls it an ideal remedy for stasis, but cautions against the use of the lighter oil as extensively prescribed in this country as a vehicle for sprays in nose and throat work.

Paraffin oil is not absorbed from the alimentary tract and so far as known, exerts no deleterious influence. It is usually given in quantities of from 10 to 20 cc. half an hour or an hour before meals or in larger doses, from 30 to 50 cc., at one time on retiring. From available evidence it appears that comparatively huge doses may be administered without the production of any untoward results. According to many observers, liquid paraffin should not be given with or after meals because of the inhibiting influence that it may have on the digestion of the food. It is not soluble in water or the ordinary solvents and therefore cannot be diluted. The denser oils are preferably slightly warmed or drunk with warm water so as to obviate the disagreeable slimy sensation that persists when taken cold.

Volatile oils may be used in moderate amounts to give a distinctive taste to the otherwise rather insipidly tasteless paraffin oil. Among the more desirable oils to be used for this purpose would be oil of peppermint, oil of cinnamon, oil of betula or methyl salicylate and oil of

5. Schmidt, A. D.: Munchen. med. Wehnschr., 1905, lii. 1970.

6. Tyrode, Maurice Vejux: Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1910, clxii, 673.

cloves. From 2 to 10 drops of any of these oils can be added to a pint of the oil. When larger doses of the oil are to be given at one time, it would, of course, be advisable to use a comparatively smaller quantity of the volatile oil as a flavor."

From the foregoing it would appear that apart from the Pharmacopoeia of the United States, practically all other known pharmacopoeias describe a waterwhite mineral oil under the title "Paraffinum Liquidum," or "Liquid Paraffin' as a colorless, odorless, tasteless, nonfluorescent, oily liquid, free from acids, alkalies and organic impurities. As explained before, the specific gravity of the preparation as recognized in other countries and as offered on the American market at the present time varies considerably, and there appears to be some difference of opinion as to the exact nature of the product that is preferable. for use for different purposes. This matter requires further investigation.

Since the definition of liquid petrolatum in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia permits the use of fluorescent products of widely varying specific gravities, it is recommended that physicians who desire the water-white, non-fluorescent (Russian) mineral oil, should use the term "Petrolatum Liquidum, Grave," or "Paraffinum Liquidum, B. P.," if the heavy product recommended by Lane is desired, and "Petrolatum Liquidum, Leve," if the light varieties are required. It is further recommended that under the foregoing names, manufacturers and pharmacists. be requested to dispense the products, in accordance with the following descriptions:

Petrolatum Liquidum, Grave.-Heavy (Russian) Liquid Petrolatum. Paraffinum Liquidum, B. P., liquid paraffin.A transparent, colorless, tasteless, nonfluorescent, oily liquid, odorless when

7. In addition to the articles referred to in the preceding footnotes, the following are of interest in connection with this subject:

Editorial, Therap. Gaz., 1885, ix, 353.

Junker, F. A.: Med. Record, London, 1885, xiii, 506.
Editorial, Med. News, 1886, xlviii, 105.

Dunbar: Deutsch. med. Wehnschr., 1896, xxii, 33. Stubenrath, Franz Casimir: Munchen. med. Wehnschr., 1897, xliv, 639.

London Letter, Med. News, 1899, lxxiv, 504.
Hutchison, Robert: Brit. Med. Jour., 1899, i, 724.
Schlesinger, E. G.: Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1913,

clxix, 14.

Lane, W. Arbuthnot: Brit. Med. Jour., 1913, ii, 1126; Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1913, vi, 49; Surg. Gynec. and Obst., 1913, xvi, No. 6.

Jordan, Alfred C.: Practioner, London, February, 1913. Chrysospathes, J. G.: Zentralbl. f. Chir., 1913 No. 45; abstr., The Journal A. M. A., Dec. 13, 1913, p. 2201.

cold, but giving off a faint petroleum odor on heating. This preparation should correspond to the requirements of the British Pharmacopoeia for liquid paraffin and have a specific gravity of about 0.885 to 0.890 at 15 C. It is insoluble in water or alcohol, but soluble in boiling absolute alcohol and readily soluble in ether, chloroform, carbon disulphide, petroleum, benzin, benzine and fixed and volatile oils. It serves as a solvent for volatile oils and related substances like camphor, menthol and thymol.

This is the type of preparation used by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, and his associates for internal administration. It is also used as a basis for ointments and salves and as a local application to wounds, ulcers and in certain forms of skin diseases in which a simple protective is desired.

Petrolatum Liquidum, Leve. - Light (Russian)-Liquid Petrolatum.-A transparent, colorless, tasteless, non-fluorescent, oily liquid, odorless when cold, but giving off a faint petroleum odor on heating. In other respects this preparation should correspond to the pharmacopoeial tests for liquid petrolatum and have a specific gravity of about 0.860 to 0.875 at 15 C. Like the heavy variety of liquid petrolatum, it is insoluble in water and alcohol, but soluble in boiling absolute alcohol and readily soluble in ether, chloroform, carbon disulphide, petroleum benzin, benzine and fixed and volatile oils. It serves as a solvent for volatile oils and related substances, like camphor, menthol and thymol.

This is a type of preparation extensively used as a vehicle for the oily sprays in nose and throat work. It is also being used as one of the constituents in the now popular paraffin oil cold cream and has been used to some extent for internal administration in the treatment of chronic stasis. Being more limpid than the preparation preferred by Lane, it is more readily taken, though greater care must be exercised in securing a sample devoid of the lighter fractions of petroleum distillates.

"Then you weren't always a black sheep?” "No, mum, I started my career as a Wall Street Lamb."-Washington Herald.

The Inventor of Dover's Powder.

Dixon details a number of interesting facts concerning Thomas Dover, the English physician and navigator, who was born in 1660 and who died in 1742. He was known in his day as the "Quicksilver Doctor," having created quite a stir by advocating the use of crude mercury in the treatment of many diseases. In 1708 he sailed on famous voyage around the world. The expedition, which consisted of six armed ships, was noted for three achievements: the taking of the town of Guayaquil, the capture of the lesser Manila treasure ship, and the relief of Alexander Selkirk ("Robinson Crusoe") from his voluntary exile on the island of Juan Fernandez. It is suggested that it was Dr. Dover who introduced Selkirk to Daniel Defoe and persuaded the former to entrust his diary to the famous author of "Robinson Crusoe." Selkirk conceived a grievance against Defoe for stealing his story and swelling it into the great romance. Previous to his voyage around the world, Dover had settled in Bristol and had achieved honorable distinction as the first medical man who gratuitously offered his services on behalf of the poor, under the care of the guardians of that city. This was in 1696, during an epidemic of spotted fever, of which he wrote later, "About Fifty Years since, Fever raged so much in Bristol, so that I visited Twenty-five to Thirty Patients a Day for a considerable time, besides their Poor Children taken into their Work-house, where I engaged myself, for the Encouragement of so good and charitable an undertaking, to find them Physick, and give them Advice at my own Expense and Trouble, for the two first years. All these Poor Children in general had this Fever, yet no more than one died out of the whole Number, which was near two hundred." The hospital where Dover worked is a well-known landmark in Bristol, called St. Peter's Hospital, and now used as the offices of the guardians. (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine.)-Critic and Guide.

Form and Substance.

(From Scientific American.)

Change is the order of Nature. Yet, in the ever-shifting landscape of the world's events, we have learnt to distinguish two stable landmarks, Matter and Energy. The recognition of this constancy represents, to the physicist, one of the great central truths of science. But from a more "human" point of view, there is something unsatisfying about this permanence of substance. For what counts, in life, is not the substance, but the form. And the form is fleeting, though the substance abide. What if the changing seasons leave the total mass and energy of the universe unaltered? Spring brings its buds and blossoms, Summer ripens, Autumn gathers in the fruit. These are the things that matter. What comfort, when the living form is fled, that the total substance be unaltered? Life is one ceaseless endeavor to preserve a form, an effort in which sooner or later all are vanquished.

Yet, for a time the organism does succeed in preserving that characteristic form on which its life, its consciousness depend. And, strangely enough, here, in a sense, conditions seem reversed; while the form is constant, the substance is forever changing. The human body, for example, might be likened to a house, the bricks of which were continually being removed and replaced by others, in such way that the form of the building be carefully preserved. The life of man, his very identity, depend, not on the bricks of which he is built (for they are replaced from day to day), but on the form in which his structure is raised. And this constancy of form, which for a time, is his, unlike the constancy of mass, is not inherent in the nature of things, but must be purchased by continued effort. And sooner or later the effort fails, and that form which means all to the organism, crumbles and decays.

As if by an irony of fate, while Nature has guaranteed the permanence of substance, at any rate for æons to come, the very things by which we set most store depend on form, fleeting, evanescent.

Features of the New British

Pharmacopoeia.

(From our London Correspondent.)

LONDON, June 3, 1914. As indicated by Sir Donald MacAlister's presidential address to the General Medical Council and by the report of the Pharmacopoeia Committee of that body, the publication of a new British Pharmacopoeia is imminent. The new book was referred to by the President as the "Official medicine book of the Empire." At present the precise details of the changes that have been made. are not available, but the book will be a considerable improvement on its immediate predecessor, and its merits will find ready appreciation by its chief users, viz., the prescribers, dispensers and manufacturers of medicines, who are guided in their practice by it and governed by its standards.

By the Medical Act of 1858, it was enacted that the General Medical Council should publish a book containing a list of medicines and compounds and the manner of preparing them, with other information, to be called the British Pharmacopoeia and that this book should be altered and republished as often as was deemed necessary. The last edition of the British Pharmacopoeia appeared in 1898, and the present one, which is just announced, has been expected for the last five years.

The Pharmacopoeia does not contain one-half of the drugs which are used in medicine now, but, broadly speaking, those in it may be looked upon as drugs that have proved to be of real worth in the experience of the medical profession over a period of several years, and whose action can be fairly well prophesied when they are used, skillfully or unskillfully by an unqualified drugger. The book has the further and important value of standardizing for the Empire. the preparation and dosage of those drugs which are most commonly used in medicine.

The first group of drugs to be added to the Pharmacopoeia is that known as the synthetic medicines. One of the first of these synthetic preparations. was the drug known as antipyrin, invented about 1884. It was made from coal tar, and was the forerunner of this innumerable class of drugs which still

flood the medical market and cause the doctor's waste-basket to be filled with advertising recommendations. Many of them are of little value, while others are extremely useful. The skill of the synthetic chemist consists in making combinations of radicals which have a beneficial action on the human organism, and in removing or keeping out any having toxic or harmful actions. When any such combination is made it is put on the market under some proprietary name which does not indicate its chemical composition. It is soon, however, analyzed, and a substitute is prepared which is identifiable by its name, and which is generally to be had for much less cost. For instance, aspirin costs about four times as much as acetyl-salicylic acid, and has no better action than it; but if prescribed, aspirin must be dispensed. Therefore, as a matter of fact, neither aspirin nor veronal will appear as such in the new Pharmacopoeia, but probably acetylsalicylic acid and diethyl-malonyl-urea

will.

The fact that aspirin and veronal will become official will unfortunately not limit their consumption under unqualified advice. However convenient the comparatively new pharmacy of compressed drugs may be, it has its disadvantages, both to the patient and to the doctor. Formerly a doctor's prescription was written for a definite condition in a definite person on the date of its writing, and the doctor by signing it undertook the responsibility for prescribing. All students are taught that no prescription is complete which has not the patient's name, the date, and the doctor's signature on it. In this way a medicine was made up and taken only by the person for whom it was intended or perhaps occasionally by some other member of the family. Nowadays if a doctor is unwary enough to prescribe a bottle of aspirin in compressed form and it does the patient good, it is so easy for the story of the ailment and the prescription which wrought a cure to be passed around the smoking compartment in the train on the way to town in the morning or across the teacup in an afternoon, and so easy for some one else with "rheumatism" to go and buy a bottle of the drug in ready-made up doses and with directions on the label.