leaves, etc., by adding a few drops of chloroform to the container when first putting away. A small piece of camphor will answer the same purpose.

In sifting tooth powders, powdered drugs and moistened powders, before packing into percolators, the common sieve requires too much time and manipulation. A new kind of flour sieve provided with a rotary mechanism may be cheaply had at any hardware store. Such is far more useful to the busy pharmacist than the kind he usually uses. They may be had for coarse and fine powders.

A large size nutmeg grater is a useful thing to have in a pharmacy. With it a number of drugs can be grated to a coarse powder, which could not be reduced in a mortar or in a drug mill. In grating, the drug should not be firmly pressed against the grater, but should be only lightly passed over it.

Pharmacists sometimes have calls for hard pomades for chapped hands, etc., to take the place of the soft cold cream. An efficient preparation, and one that has given satisfaction to users, may easily be made by melting together I part of borax, 25 parts of almond oil and 75 parts of cocoa butter. Flavor with oil of rose sufficiently, or omit the flavoring, as the odor of the butter is quite agreeable. Pour the mass before it is entirely cool into small, flat ointment jars of two drachms or half an ounce capacity.

Patrons who first suggested a toilet article of the nature of cold cream, but much harder, and others, readily paid 25 cents for the half-ounce package, neatly put up. A preparation hardened with wax or spermaceti did not meet with as much favor as that made with the cocoa butter.

The so-called double boiler, to be had made of tin or agateware in any housefurnishing establishment, is really a water bath, and with care may be also used as a steam bath. It is an economical and convenient substitute for the expensive copper water bath.

Agate or graniteware is useful in the laboratory. The porcelain casseroles, infusion jars, evaporating dishes, etc., are expensive and fragile. Agateware is cheaper and answers most purposes better than porcelainware. A good quality should be selected, because in the poorer the glazing is sometimes imperfect. Tin measures, funnels, etc., should not be used when the clean, non-corrosive agateware can be had nearly as cheaply.-Pharm. Era.

"Mrs Shopper is just crazy after bargains. She is down town every bargain day and never gets home until dark." "Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. She'd die happy if she could be laid out on a bargain counter and buried as a remnant."

The Truth About Castoria.

The people who make Fletcher's, otherwise known as the "original" Castoria, are flooding the drug and lay journals with accounts of a few lawsuits that they have successfully conducted against imitators of their product. Some inquiries have reached us on this point, as evidently some do not clearly understand the grounds on which the decision of Justice Brewer, adverse to the Centaur Company, and favorable to Heinsfurther & Daggett, was rendered last year. It was simply this: That Castoria being a patent medicine on which the patent had expired, the judge held that anyone who so desired could make it, and as there was no other name by which it was known, the preparation made by the patented formula was entitled to be called Castoria. So much for this. There has been no iraitation of Fletcher's Castoria by that firm, and they have not attempted to sell their remedy for anything but what it actually is, so far as we know.

The cases mentioned so much in the drug journals recently are, so far as we have observed, decided on different grounds. The question of the patent was not at issue. The defendants had closely imitated the wrappers and packages of the Centaur Company, and this was clearly a violation of equity. No one has a right to sell an imitation of Castoria, colorable or otherwise, that will deceive the purchaser; every make of Castoria must stand on its own merits and the man who makes Smith's Castoria, must not imitate the wrappers and packages of Jones or any other man's Castoria. To imitate a medicine is to violate its maker's common law rights, and so far as we know, the courts have never failed to punish such fraud. Imitation is most contemptible and ought to be severely punished every time it is practised.

Anyone can make and sell Castoria by that name. No one but the Centaur Company has a right to use the trademark of the Centaur Company, which is the signature of Charles H. Fletcher; no one has a right to imitate the wrappers and packages of the Centaur Co., with a view to deceiving the public. Hence the recent convictions, which do not in the least alter the importance of Judge Brewer's decision. New Idea

COHEN BROS.

Messrs Cohen Brothers, who have during the past few years been mainly instrumental in placing the means of obtaining an optical training within reach of the druggists of the North West, have arranged ro repeat their previous efforts by holding a class for optical instruction in Winnipeg during the ensuing month.

As will be seen by their announcement on another page, Mr. L. G. Amsden, Principal of the Canadian Ophthalmic College, who is well known to the opticians of the Western Provinces through his former optical class in Winnipeg, and well known to the drug trade in the Dominion as the optical editor of the PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL, will meet the intending students in Winnipeg on March the 27th, and the advanced students on April the 3rd. This is an excellent opportunity for the druggists of Manitoba and the North West to get in line with their eastern brothers and add an optical department to their regular line.

The number and variety of objects that an enterprising youngster of an inquisitive turn of mind can cram into its nostrils are almost infinite. A case containing objects removed from the nasal fossæ of children under 5 years of age, in one of the clinics of Paris, contains, among other things, several bullets, dozens of buttons, a number of coins, rings, seeds, nuts, beads, and even a lady's thimble. The usual method of removing these objects is to seize them with forceps with serrated teeth and to pull them out by main strength-an operation frequently fraught with laceration and hemorrhage, and considerable pain. The following simple procedure avoids all th's and is successful in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, and can be practiced by any person: The patient is firmly held in the lap of its nurse or mother, with the head thrown slightly backward. The operator then places the left hand firmly over the mouth of the child, completely closing it. Into the free nostril, or that opposite to the obstructed one, is inserted one end of a short rubber tube, the other being held in the mouth of the operator. When all is ready a sudden, quick and powerful blast of air is driven into the fossæ, which in the vast majority of cases expels the foreign body, frequently driving it out with great force. Any bit of rubber tubing, large enough to make a somewhat tight fit in the nostril will answer the purpose. If the nostrils have been much irritated an application of a 4% solution of cocaine may be applied shortly before making the attempt at expulsion.-National Drnggist.

COMMERCIAL KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY.

How many graduates in pharmacy know anything. of book-keeping and commercial usages? And yet a knowledge of the art of book-keeping is the one thing absolutely essential to success in any business. Without it how can any man know whether he is making or losing money, even though he does n entirely cash business (and how many druggists do this?) both in buying and selling. What opportunity does the boy or youth have to learn anything, even the rudiments of the art, while he is acquiring his practical experience. How much better off, in this direction, after he has graduated and entered on the active life of a clerk? There is absolutely no good reason why a course in book-keeping and commercial usage should not be made a part of the curriculum of every college of pharmacy.

The successful druggist of the future will be he who is best educated in the ways and usages of commerce, who can go into the markets and buy with a full knowledge of the exact worth of each article, whose general information in the minutiae of manufactures, the trends of markets, the supply and demand, etc., enables him to buy and to sell to the best advantage. To do all this, he must have training on a far broader basis than our schools and colleges have hitherto provided. Will they meet the emergency at once, or be gradually and slowly forced into it ?-National Druggist.

Pharmacy.

Sources of error in the B. P. method of estimating strychnine. T. F. Harvey draws attention to this point in a recent issue of the Chemist & Druggist. In the original paper by Dunstan & Short, upon which the process is based, they direct that any quantity of the mixed alkaloids not exceeding 20 centigrammes be taken, and the authors also pointed out that the brucine in the precipitating liquid must not exceed .08 per cent. or unreliable results will be obtained. Mr. Harvey finds this statement correct, and suggests that instead of using 10 cc. of the liquid extract for the assay not more than 5 ccs. should be used.

New Remedies.

ALCOHOL IN TABLET FORM. A German inventor has succeeded in obtaining tablets containing about 90 per cent. of alcohol. One tablet will boil about a quart of water in ten minutes.

NIRVANIN. A new local anesthetic introduced by Einhorn & Heinz is the hydrochloride of diethylglycocoll paramidoorthooxybenzoic methylester. It crystallizes in colorless prisms, readily soluble in water. A 5 per cent. solution injected subcutaneously produces complete anæsthesia.

EULACTOL is a new food substance put on the market by the Nührmittel-Actien Gesellschaft of Cologne. It is prepared from milk and plant albumen, and is said to contain all the necessary constituents of a perfect food.

BONAL, a food preservative, has been examined by Dr. Aufrecht, who states its composition to be as follows:

Obituary.

JOHN FRITH,

Another of the old employees of The Lyman, Knox Bros. & Co. has passed over on Wednesday, Feb. 22nd. John Frith died at his residence, 320 Borden St., at the age of 62 years. Mr. Frith had been in the employ of the house for over 30 years, latterly in charge of the wet department. He was an Irishman, and possessed in a full measure the generous-hearted sympathetic nature characteristic of the sons of the emerald isle. Wit an ear ever on the alert and hand ever ready to aid in trouble, he endeared himself to his fellow employees, who will miss his kindly presence. The funeral took place on Friday the 24tn, the remains being interred in St. James', the heads of the house of Lyman Bros. & Co. and almost the entire staff attending.

WILHELM MERCK.

The head of the great Chemical Manufacturing firm of E. Merck, of Darmstadt, Germany, passed away on Jan. 12th. Wilhelm Merck, the last surviving of three brothers, was the man to whose wisdom and energy the house owes its present commanding position in the chemical world.

Darmstadt was Mr. Merck's native city, where he was born in 1833, a descendant of a line of pharmacists, the first of whom, J. F. Merck, founded the Merck pharmacy in 1668.

Mr. Merck's early education was secured in his native town; his professional equipment was secured under such masters as Loewig, of Breslau University; A. W. Hofmann, of London, Eng., and at the Wurtz Laboratory in Paris. In 1873 Mr. Merck took charge of the laboratories and works and in 1885, on the death of his brother Karl, assumed the entire management of the business. So well did he administer the affair of the concern that during the 40 years of his connection it has grown twenty fold, having now branches in London, Moscow and New York.

Mr. Merck was more than a leading chemist, he was a public spirited citizen occupying a position on the Municipal Council of his city for almost a quarter of a century and later appointed a privy councillor and life member of First Chamber of Estates for the Grand Duchy (a position similar to that of our senators.)

HERVEY C. PARKE.

The death of Mr. Parke, which took place in California, came as a shock to his many friends and also to the members of the firm of which he was the head. A report of the death came to Detroit as a