Jour. Pharm , 1889 Macerate the former in a covered vessel for twelve hours, then filter the liquid, and form a syrup with the sugar. No. 2. (1720) R Oriental saffron......... Boiling water..................... 3 vj. 3x. Infuse for three days in a closed vessel, express, and dissolve in the infusion White sugar.. No. 3. (Van Mons) R Saffron...... Water...... ..I lb. ...1 part, 8 parts. Infuse for six hours in a water-bath and express; again infuse the residue in water, 8 parts, mix the two strained infusions, and add— Macerate for two days, then express lightly; set the liquor aside, de cant and add Sacch. alb. make a syrup. ...1 lb. 10 oz. The following formula can be recommended as producing an excel Infuse the saffron in boiling water for six hours and strain; set aside till cold, then heat to the boiling point and filter. Dissolve the sugar in the filtrate by means of gentle heat, and when cold add the rectified spirit. The product will be found to keep well, and remain bright and clear without precipitating.-Phar. Jour. and Trans., January 5, p. 526. Zinc cyanide is recommended by Dr. Laschenwitsch (Jour. de Méd.) in certain affections of the heart, and seems to be particularly valuable in cases where digitalis, convallaria, etc., irritate the digestive organs. The dose is from five to six milligrammes in the twenty-four hours. The salt must not be confounded with the ferrocyanide, which is probably useless for the above purpose. LINIMENTUM OPII AMMONIATUM. BY M. CONROY, F. C. S. This liniment, according to the recent edition of the B.P.C. Formulary, is made by mixing together 6 fluidounces each of soap liniment, compound camphor liniment and tincture of opium, and 1 fluidounce each of liniment of belladonna and stronger solution of ammonia, with directions to "mix, and after standing a week, filter quickly;" while in the first edition of the Formulary the directions to the same formula were simply "mix and filter." When made by this latter plan I have invariably noticed that a crystalline deposit takes place after a few days' rest, from which it would appear that the object of the instructions contained in the last edition of the Formulary is to allow this separation to take place before filtering. This crystalline deposit resembles morphine very much, and as 20 fluidounces of the liniment contains 6 fluidounces of tincture of opium, equivalent to 198 grains of powdered opium or to 19.8 grains of morphine, it seemed very probable, considering the presence of caustic ammonia, that morphine would crystallize out. With the object in view of determining the nature of the deposit, I sealed up a bottle last May, made to the directions of the old Formulary, by simply mixing and filtering right off, and did not open it until yesterday. This bottle contained 20 fluidounces, and after syphoning off the clear liquor, the crystalline deposit was thrown into a small filter, drained, and freed from adhering liniment by washing with a little proof spirit. After drying at 212° Fahr. the weight was found to be only 2.1 grains, and I was somewhat surprised to find that the crystals were not morphine, nor did they even yield a trace of morphine to the usual delicate tests for that alkaloid. They were only very slightly soluble in water, and the solution gave a white precipitate with barium chloride insoluble in nitric acid. Heated to redness on platinum foil, a slight charring occurred, due probably to extractive matter, as the crystals were of a yellow color, and a white ash remained, which was nearly all soluble in water. This solution gave the violet potassium flame test, and a little of the solution placed on a watch glass, with a drop of solution of platinic chloride, gave a small crop of crystals on standing a few hours. There were also very slight traces of calcium and of meconic acid. This result, I must confess, came to me as an agreeable surprise, for I have looked upon this liniment since its introduction as an incompatible mixture; but it is very evident from this that the solvent action of the alcoholic medium is quite sufficient to hold the morphine in solution. Although these results are of a negative character, they are well worth recording, as no doubt others have observed this crystalline deposit and have possibly come to the same conclusion as myself, and they also show that the Formulary Committee have been well advised in directing the liniment to stand a week before filtering.-Phar. Jour. and Trans., Dec. 1, p. 442. RÉCAMIER TOILET POWDER. "Guaranteed free from lead, bismuth and arsenic. The finest powder ever manufactured. Will not make the face shine." Sample packages of this powder have been distributed by mail. A chemical and microscopical investigation of the preparation shows its composition to be oxide of zinc mixed with starch. C. B. PHOTOGRAPHY. By F. V. BUTTERFIELD. (Continued from page 48.) The result of all this work is a negative, from which as many copies as required may be taken by the process of printing. The conventional term "negative" may possibly puzzle some, so I will just explain en passant that it is so called in contradistinction to a "positive," which is a picture in itself, whilst a "negative" is only the means of making one; in the latter all the lights and shades are reversed; it is always examined by transmitted light, the former by reflected light. As stated in a previous portion of this paper, wet-plate photography seems. well adapted for taking" positives," and the peripatetic photographer, a wellknown character in all popular places of resort, does not by any means lose sight of this. Another common form of the collodion positive is the ferrotype, possibly familiar to you under the name of "American Gem" portraits, the only difference being in the substitution of a thin sheet of enamelled iron for the ordinary glass plate. The gelatin-bromide process is similar in principle to the above, but here gelatin is used in the place of collodion for holding the sensitive silver salts in situ, the advantage being that the plates can be prepared a great length of time before using; and also after exposure, they may be kept for a lengthened period, prior to development, a fact of no little importance, when on a tour abroad, for instance; but the most striking feature in connection with its use is that the gelatin in some way or other appears to act Jour. Pharm , 1889 splendidly as a most energetic sensitizer, so that the part it plays may not be entirely mechanical, and thus the slowest gelatin dry plate on the market is twenty times more rapid than the old wet-plate, whilst those devoted to instantaneous work are about sixty times more sensitive. The preparation of these plates requires special apparatus, and as they can now be bought so very cheaply, it would not repay an amateur to make them, so, having obtained a supply, the next step is to draw on them a picture by the aid of light, or in other words, to take a photograph. Now a ray of ordinary light can be split up by dispersion into a series of different colors, commencing with red and ending in violet, the latter being the most refrangible, the former least so, and the spectrum so obtained also possesses three different properties, calorific, illuminating and chemical. The heating effects reside chiefly in the red rays, illuminating in the yellow' whilst the violet and some still more refrangible or ultra-violet rays constitute the chemical or actinic properties, and it has been proved that the decomposition of silver salts by light is almost entirely due to these actinic rays. Thus we are enabled to do all our work, such as preparation of the plates, development, etc., with impunity in a deep ruby light, which has no palpable effect on the most rapid gelatin. But it will now also be apparent to you that it is no easy matter to take a good photograph of, say, a fair sitter, possessing lovely blue eyes and red hair, or an individual furnished with a liberal supply of yellow freckles, or say, a painting where all the varied colors of the spectrum are blended together in one harmonious whole; but for work of this sort special plates are prepared called "orthochromatic," in which the sensitive film is stained with some aniline dye; an ammoniacal solution of eosin or tetrabromfluorescein has been found to answer extremely well, and plates prepared with it are the subject of a patent. Any object which reflects yellow or red, will appear almost black when reproduced by photography, whilst any shade of blue is almost equivalent to white. These facts must be borne in mind when calculating the time requisite in exposure. The lenses employed must, of course, be rendered achromatic. This is easily effected by a combination of flint and crown glass, but, as they can not be entirely freed from spherical aberration, we are obliged to use diaphragms to cut off the outer rays, in order to obtain pictures sharp and crisp all over. Cameras are made in a variety of shapes and sizes. With regard to the latter I recommend the half-plate size, as it is not too cumbersome to become a nuisance when touring, and enlargements can be easily made on the "bromide" paper sold for the purpose, if required. The shape should be square, having a reversing frame, swing back and rising front. The first is very useful, from the fact that we can take a photograph, with the plate held in either a horizontal or vertical position, instead of having to alter the position of the camera as of yore. The swing back is brought into play, whenever it is necessary to tilt the camera, serving to keep the plate as nearly as possible in a perpendicular plane, whilst the rising front will some Jour times obviate tilting the camera, etc. The bellows should be extensible to twice the focus of the lens, so that the camera may be also used for copying other photographs, etc. Three double backs are usually provided with each camera. These are light-tight, and the first operation is to fill them with the dry plates. This, as I explained, must only be done in a non-actinic medium. If a proper dark room cannot be fitted up, the darkest place possible should be secured, and all work, such as development, etc., always reserved till night, when by the aid of the ruby lamp there is no difficulty whatever. The packet of quarter plates is then opened in this red light, and carriers are provided to enable the half plate dark slide to be used for any smaller plate; so the quarter plate having been placed in the rabbet of the "carrier," film side down, and secured, the camera is next mounted on its tripod stand. Portraits require some experience in "lighting," posing, etc., before they can be taken at all satisfactorily; it is better to commence, therefore, with some simple object, such as a building. Having taken up some coign of vantage uncap the lens, and with the cloth drawn over your head to keep out extraneous light, proceed to focus. Owing to the rectilinear propagation of light the image of the object of course appears upon the screen in an inverted position. In a portrait it is usual to focus the eyes of the sitter only, but for a landscape generally the foreground, in order to get the effect of distance, whilst the arrangement of the picture itself will call into requisition your artistic tastes and abilities. Having thus got the object into as sharp focus as possible, by means of the rack and pinion adjustment, recap the lens, withdraw the screen, and in its place insert the dark slide containing the gelatin dry plate. Now comes the most important operation, that is, exposure. No hard and fast rule can be given for this, it is gained only by experience and practice: with an ordinary dry plate, doublet lens, and nicely diffused light, two to three seconds may be considered the average time to give, but on this occasion only draw out the shutter of the dark slide to one-third its length and give one second; then draw it out another third, being careful not to disturb the position of the camera, and give another second; finally, expose for one second more when drawn out to its full extent. There will thus be, on that one plate, the results of three exposures of one, two and three seconds each. The next step is the development of the photograph. For this purpose many different solutions have been suggested and used from time to time, but the one I always use recommends itself for simplicity, and has the great advantage of working well with almost any maker's plate. One has, moreover, considerable control over it during development, its action being easily modulated to suit either " over" or "under" -exposed plates. For a quarter plate take 1 ounce of the above, and immediately before |