Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume Ii Part 128

_Obs._ According to the report of the French commission, pewter containing more than 18 parts of lead to 82 parts of tin is unsafe for measures for wine, and similar liquors and, indeed, for any other utensils exposed to contact with our food or beverages. The legal sp. gr. of pewter in France is 7764; if it be greater, it contains an excess of lead, and is liable to prove poisonous. The proportions of these metals may be approximately determined from the sp. gr.; but correctly only by an a.s.say for the purpose. See BRa.s.s, GERMAN SILVER, LEAD, and TIN.

=PHARAOH'S SERPENTS.= 1. The chemical toy sold under this name consists of the powder of sulphocyanide of mercury made up in a capsule of tin foil in a conical ma.s.s of about an inch in height.

Ignited at the apex an ash is protruded, long and serpentine in shape. The fumes evolved are very poisonous.

2. (NON-POISONOUS.) b.i.+.c.hromate of pota.s.sium, 2 parts; nitrate of pota.s.sa, 1 part; and white sugar, 3 parts. Pulverise each of the ingredients separately, and then mix them thoroughly. Make small paper cones of the desired size, and press the mixture into them. They will then be ready for use, but must be kept from light and moisture.

=PHARMACY ACT.= The following are the princ.i.p.al clauses of the Pharmacy Act of 1860 (31 and 32 Victoria, cap. cxxi). We have separated and placed last, those provisions of the Act which relate to the sale of poisons:--

Whereas it is expedient for the safety of the public that persons keeping open shop for the retailing, dispensing, or compounding of poisons, and persons known as chemists and druggists should possess a competent practical knowledge of their business, and to that end, that from and after the day herein named all persons not already engaged in such business should, before commencing such business, be duly examined as to their practical knowledge, and that a register should be kept as herein provided, and also that the Act pa.s.sed in the 15th and 16th years of the reign of her present Majesty, int.i.tuled 'An Act for Regulating the Qualification of Pharmaceutical Chemists,' hereinafter described as the Pharmacy Act, should be amended: Be it enacted, by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament a.s.sembled, and by authority of the same, as follows:--

From and after the 31st day of December, 1868, it shall be unlawful for any person to sell or keep open shop for retailing, dispensing, or compounding poisons, or to a.s.sume or use the t.i.tle 'Chemist and Druggist,'

or chemist or druggist, or pharmacist, or dispensing chemist, or druggist, in any part of Great Britain, unless such person shall be a pharmaceutical chemist, or a chemist and druggist, within the meaning of this Act, and be registered under this Act, and conform to such regulations as to the keeping, dispensing, and selling of such poisons as may from time to time be prescribed by the Pharmaceutical Society with the consent of the Privy Council (Clause 1).

Chemists and druggists within the meaning of this Act shall consist of all persons who at any time before the pa.s.sing of this Act have carried on in Great Britain the business of a chemist and druggist in the keeping of open shop for the compounding of the prescriptions of duly qualified medical pract.i.tioners, also of all a.s.sistants and a.s.sociates, who before the pa.s.sing of the Act shall have been duly registered under or according to the provisions of the Pharmacy Act, and also of all such persons as may be duly registered under this Act (Clause 3).

All such persons as shall from time to time have been appointed to conduct examinations under the Pharmacy Act shall be, and are hereby declared to be, examiners for the purposes of this Act, and are hereby empowered and required to examine all such persons as shall tender themselves for examination under the provisions of this Act,[93] and every person who shall have been examined by such examiners, and shall have obtained from them a certificate of competent skill, and knowledge, and qualification, shall be ent.i.tled to be registered as a chemist and druggist under this Act, and the examination aforesaid shall be such as is provided under the Pharmacy Act for the purposes of a qualification to be registered as a.s.sistant under that Act, or as the same may be varied from time to time by any bye-law to be made in accordance with the Pharmacy Act as amended by this Act, provided that no person shall conduct any examination for the purposes of this Act until his appointment has been approved by the Privy Council (Clause 6).

[Footnote 93: See above.]

No name shall be entered in the register, except of persons authorised by this Act to be registered, nor unless the registrar be satisfied by the proper evidence that the person claiming is ent.i.tled to be registered; and any appeal from the decision of the registrar may be decided by the council of the Pharmaceutical Society; and any entry which shall be proved to the satisfaction of such council to have been fraudulently or incorrectly made may be erased from or amended in the register, by order in writing of such council (Clause 12).

"The registrar shall, in the month of January in every year, cause to be printed, published, and sold, a correct register of the names of all pharmaceutical chemists, and a correct register of all persons registered as chemists and druggists, and in such registers, respectively the names shall be in alphabetical order, according to the surnames, with the respective residences, in the form set forth in schedule (B) to this Act, or to the like effect, of all persons appearing on the register of pharmaceutical chemists, and on the register of chemists and druggists, on the 31st day of December last preceding, and such printed registers shall be called 'The Registers of Pharmaceutical Chemists and Chemists and Druggists,' and a printed copy of such registers for the time being, purporting to be so printed and published as aforesaid, or any certificate under the hand of the said registrar, and countersigned by the president or two members of the council of the Pharmaceutical Society, shall be evidence in all courts and before all justices of the peace and others, that the persons therein specified are registered according to the provisions of the Pharmacy Act or of this Act, as the case may be, and the absence of the name of any person from such printed register shall be evidence, until the contrary shall be made to appear, that such person is not registered according to the provisions of the Pharmacy Act or of this Act (Clause 13).

From and after the 31st day of December, 1868, any person who shall sell or keep an open shop for the retailing, dispensing, or compounding poisons, or who shall take, use, or exhibit the name or t.i.tle of chemist and druggist, or chemist or druggist, not being a duly registered pharmaceutical chemist, or chemist and druggist, or who shall take, use, or exhibit the name or t.i.tle pharmaceutical chemist, pharmaceutist, or pharmacist, not being a pharmaceutical chemist, or shall fail to conform with any regulation as to the keeping or selling of poisons, made in pursuance of this Act, or who shall compound any medicines of the British Pharmacopia, except according to the formularies of the said Pharmacopia, shall for every such offence be liable to pay a penalty or sum of 5, and the same may be sued for, recovered, and dealt with in the manner provided by the Pharmacy Act for the recovery of penalties under that Act; but nothing in this Act contained shall prevent any person from being liable to any other penalty, damages, or punishment to which he would have been subject if this Act had not been pa.s.sed (Clause 15).

_Clauses of the Pharmacy Act relating to the sale of Poisons._

It shall be unlawful to sell any poison either by wholesale or retail, unless the box, bottle, vessel, wrapper, or cover in which such poison is contained be distinctly labelled with the name of the article and the word poison, and with the name and address of the seller of the poison; and it shall be unlawful to sell any poison of those which are in the first part of schedule (A) to this Act, or may hereafter be added thereto under section II of this Act, to any person unknown to the seller, unless introduced by some person known to the seller; and on every sale of any such article the seller shall, before delivery, make or cause to be made an entry in a book to be kept for that purpose, stating, in the form set forth in schedule (F) to this Act, the date of the sale, the name and address of the purchaser, the name and quant.i.ty of the article sold, and the purpose for which it is stated by the purchaser to be required, to which entry the signature of the purchaser and of the person, if any, who introduced him, shall be affixed; and any person selling poison otherwise than is herein provided, shall, upon a summary conviction before two justices of the peace in England or the sheriff in Scotland, be liable to a penalty not exceeding 5 for the first offence, and to a penalty not exceeding 10 for the second or any subsequent offence; and for the purposes of this section the person on whose behalf any sale is made by any apprentice or servant shall be deemed to be the seller, but the provisions of this section, which are solely applicable to poisons in the first part of the schedule (A) to this Act, or which require that the label shall contain the name and address of the seller, shall not apply to articles to be exported from Great Britain by wholesale dealers, nor to sales by wholesale to retail dealers in the ordinary course of wholesale dealing, nor shall any of the provisions of this section apply to any medicine supplied by a legally qualified apothecary to his patient, nor apply to any article when forming part of the ingredients of any medicine dispensed by a person registered under this Act provided such medicine be labelled in the manner aforesaid with the name and address of the seller, and the ingredients thereof be entered, with the name of the person to whom it is sold or delivered, in a book to be kept by the seller for that purpose, and nothing in this Act contained shall repeal or affect any of the provisions of an Act of the Session holden in the fourteenth and fifteenth years in the reign of her present Majesty, int.i.tuled 'An Act to regulate the Sale of a.r.s.enic' (Clause 17).

SCHEDULE (A).

Part 1.

a.r.s.enic and its preparations.

Prussic acid.

Cyanide of pota.s.sium and all metallic cyanides.

Strychnine and all poisonous vegetable alkaloids and their salts.

Aconite and its preparations.

Emetic tartar.

Corrosive sublimate.

Cantharides.

Savin and its oil.

Ergot of rye and its preparations.

Part 2.

Oxalic acid.

Chloroform.

Belladonna and its preparations.

Essential oil of almonds, unless deprived of its prussic acid.

Opium and all preparations of opium or of poppies.

By virtue and in exercise of the powers vested in the council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the said council do hereby resolve and declare that each of the following articles, viz.--

Preparations of prussic acid, Preparations of cyanide of pota.s.sium and of all metallic cyanides, Preparations of strychnine, Preparations of atropine, Preparations of corrosive sublimate, Preparations of morphine, Red oxide of mercury (commonly known as red precipitate of mercury), Ammoniated mercury (commonly known as white precipitate of mercury), Every compound containing any poison within the meaning of 'The Pharmacy Act, 1868,' when prepared or sold for the destruction of vermin, The tincture and all vesicating liquid preparations of cantharides,

--ought to be deemed a poison within the meaning of the 'Pharmacy Act, 1868,' and also that of the same each of the following articles, viz.--

Preparations of prussic acid, Preparations of cyanide of pota.s.sium and of all metallic cyanides, Preparations of strychnine, Preparations of atropine,

--ought to be deemed a poison in the first part of the schedule (A) to the said 'Pharmacy Act, 1868,'

And notice is hereby also given, that the said Society have submitted the said resolution for the approval of the Lords of Her Majesty's Council, and that such approval has been given.

By order, ELIAS BREMRIDGE, _Secretary and Registrar of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain._

And whereas the council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain did, on the 17th day of November, 1877, resolve and declare in the words following:--

"That by virtue and in exercise of the powers vested in the council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the said council does hereby resolve and declare that _Chloral Hydrate and its preparations_ ought to be deemed poisons within the meaning of the 'Pharmacy Act, 1868,' and ought to be deemed poisons in the second part of the schedule (A) of the said 'Pharmacy Act, 1868.'"

And whereas the said Society have submitted the said resolution for the approval of the Privy Council, and the Lords of the Privy Council are of opinion that the said resolution should be approved.

Now, therefore, their Lords.h.i.+ps are hereby pleased to signify their approval of the said resolution.

C. L. PEEL.

Tardieu states that of late years the criminal administration of phosphorus has increased considerably in France. For example, from 1851 to 1872, in 793 cases of poisoning, 287 or 362 per cent. were due to a.r.s.enic, and 267 or 311 per cent. to phosphorus; whilst in the years 1872 and 1874, in 141 criminal poisonings by a.r.s.enic and phosphorus, only 74 were due to a.r.s.enic. The explanation of these facts may reasonably be ascribed to the much greater facility with which phosphorus, in the form of matches or vermin pastes, can be procured than a.r.s.enic.

=PHE'NOL.= C_{6}H_{6}O. See CARBOLIC ACID.

=PHE'NYL.= C_{6}H_{5}. The hypothetical compound radical of the phenyl-series. Carbolic acid is said to be its hydrate.

=PHENYL'AMINE.= C_{6}H_{5}H_{2}N. Aniline is sometimes so named on account of its relation to the phenyl series.

=PHIALS.= The ordinary green moulded phials used by the pharmaceutist are made of a gla.s.s obtained from common river sand and soapboilers' waste. In the manufacture of the gla.s.s for the white phials purer materials (and these as free from iron and alumina as possible) are used. Decolourising agents are also employed. The following is given as the composition of a white gla.s.s for apothecaries' phials in 'Chemistry: Theoretical, Practical, and a.n.a.lytical,'[94]

[Footnote 94: Mackenzie and Co.]

100 lbs. white sand.

30-26 " potash, impure.

17 " lime.

110-120 " ashes.

25 to 5 lbs. binoxide of manganese-cullet.

=Phials, Bologna.= Small flasks or phials of unannealed gla.s.s, which fly to pieces when their surface is scratched by a hard body. Thus, if a small piece of flint be dropped into them they are s.h.i.+vered; whereas if a bullet be used they remain uninjured.

=PHILO'NIUM.= The ancient name of an aromatic opiate, reputed to possess many virtues, invented by Philo. See CONFECTION OF OPIUM.