The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7445 p382
31 March 2007

Society summary

Curiosities from Society's rare book collections go on display in library

Some older material that is not normally available to visitors can currently be inspected in a display set up in the library at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's London headquarters. The exhibits show pharmacy links with education, veterinary medicine and the consumer rights movement.

The display includes two miniature books measuring 3.4in deep, 2.2in wide and 0.1in thick, published by James Crossley Eno, of Eno’s Fruit Salt fame. The library says that, unlike many miniatures, the two were of practical value, designed to be kept in the busy physician’s waistcoat pocket.

The ‘Doctor’s pocket remembrancer’ (1925) lists tips on making a diagnosis based on symptoms and simple tests, while the ‘Practitioner’s pocket book’ (1924) lists practical methods, legal procedures such as notification of deaths and infectious diseases and what should be carried around in a medical bag if you are a pathologist or attending a childbirth.

Among the practical suggestions offered by these books are “Remember that social position, unattractive looks, middle age and spinsterhood do not negative [sic] pregnancy. But this diagnosis should never be uttered until it is beyond all doubt” and “Be reasonable to children. They are not necessarily imbeciles”.

Also on display are some lecture notes written by Michael Faraday and published after his death in 1867. They are from a lecture on “The chemical history of a candle”, given to a young audience at the Royal Institution. The lecture covered the beauty of candle flames, capillary attraction, carbonic acid, the mechanisms of combustion, the features of air, oxygen and hydrogen, and respiration.

The text includes the following observations: “Is it not beautiful to think that such a process is going on, and that such a dirty thing as charcoal can become so incandescent? You see it comes to this — that all bright flames contain these solid particles; all things that burn and produce solid particle, either during the time they are burning , as in the candle, or immediately after being burnt, as in the case of the gunpowder and iron filings — all these things give us this glorious and beautiful light.”

The book ‘100,000,000 guinea pigs’, published in 1933, is a critique of food and drug advertising and was a key rallying text in the US consumerist movement.

A best seller for two years, selling more than 250,000 copies, it showed the US consumer as an unwitting guinea pig manipulated by manufacturers and profiteers in the absence of any effective regulation of consumer products.

A more recent book in the display is ‘First catch your tiger’ (1970) by Oliver Graham-Jones who, as a veterinary officer at London Zoo, pioneered many treatments for exotic animals, including the projectile syringes fired from an air gun to anaesthetise animals in the wild.

The display will remain at least until July. The library is open from 10am to 5pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays and from 10am to 7pm on Thursdays.