DOI issue:
Punch's essence of parliament
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16615#0145
COMMON THINGS FOR HIGH OFFICIALS-
MEDICINES AND HOW NOT TO STOW THEM.
common
may be
MONO
things
enumerated Me-
dicines. These
are either drugs,
or mixtures of
drugs, which are
certain sub-
stances chiefly
vegetable and
mineral, and a
few animal, very
generally em-
_ ployed in curing
diseases. They
are common things here, because diseases are common; and the
demand for drugs and medicines creates the supply in this country,
where the market is stocked by private enterprise. But though
diseases are very common in the Crimea, medicines are not equally
so, so little so indeed, that very lately the answer t.o every appli-
cation for any one ot those articles was, “ We haven’t got any.”
This deficiency was not owing to any parsimony on the part of
the House of Commons, or to absolute want of foresight on the part
of the Government. It was anticipated at the War Office that battles
would involve wounds, that wounds would necessitate dressings, that
hard service would be attended with sickness, and that sickness would
require medicines. But, owing to ignorance of the nature of these
common tilings on the part of certain authorities, very few of the
medicines intended for the troops ever reached them, and might as
well have been thrown to the dogs, as Macbeth desired his attendant
to throw physic, which is another name for medicine. The money
which they cost was of course thrown away too; and as very many
drugs are imported from remote countries, they are, though com-
mon things, uncommonly expensive : so that the amount of money
which has thus been wasted is immense.
To gentlemen at the heads of Departments, medicines generally
present themselves in bottles of coloured liquid, in boxes containing
little pellets called pills, or in small folded papers enveloping powders,
of various smells and tastes, for the most part nasty. The bottles, boxes,
and papers are labelled with directions for the use of their contents, in
regard to which the consequence of any mistake is sometimes serious.
Those gentlemen have also perhaps seen medicines in course of pre-
paration at druggists’ shops, but probably without noticing any of their
sensible properties except their odour ; therefore the following par-
ticulars with respect to ihe common things in question will no doubt
be new to those same gentlemen.
The majority of drugs, of which, as aforesaid, medicines are made,
are soft or brittle substances. None are so hard but that they can be
pounded in a mortar, except steel and other metals, very few of which
are administered in their metallic state. Most of them are easily
crushed and broken, many are soft, pasty, or greasy substances, that
yield to the least pressure ; and a very large proportion of them are
actual fluids, that is to say, substances resembling water in the pro-
perty of being liable to be spilled and lost. They are kept, to a con-
siderable extent, in glass bottles, the breakage of which is often
occasioned by a mere fall; and when a bottle, containing a medicine,
breaks, of course the medicine runs out. Hence, also of course, i
results the wraste of the medicine, but this is not always the only
result.
Among medicines there is one which is called Sulphuric Acid; better
known, as a common thing, by the name of Oil of Vitriol. There is
another named Nitric Acid, or Aqua Fortis. Both these acids are
highly corrosive, and destroy most things which they come into con-
tact with. Not only that, but they actually set some substances on
fire. One of these substances is Oil of Turpentine; which is likewise
a medicine. Sulphuric and Nitric Acids are kept in glass vessels:
they would eat through any other. Therefore in freighting a ship with
medical and ordnance stores, if the poverty of transport were so ex-
treme and utter as to necessitate so ill-assorted a cargo, it would be
unadvkable to stow the shot and shells and medicines together, putting
the former on the top of the latter. For, in the event of the ship’s
pitching much, as in a storm, not only might it be expected that the
cannon balls and the bombs would pound up the drugs and medicines,
one with another, in a premature and promiscuous manner, but also
that they might break, amongst other things, the acid and oil of
'turpentine bottles already mentioned, the contents of which, escaping
and mingling together, would immediately ignite, and run about blazing
m all directions. Among the commonest of common things in medical
stores are gums, oils, ointments, spirits, and ether, which are highly.
moments the shells would be roasting over the medical bonfire, and
they would presently explode, together with the powder-barrels,
scattering burning timbers, broken bottles, amalgamated materia
medica, and dismembered sailors, over the ocean.
The gross official ignorance of common things, and especially of
medicines, considered, it is wonderlul that this catastrophe has not
been itself a common thing m the experience of the transport services.
QUESTIONS THM1 DON'T ANSWER.
There seems to be always a certain number of members of Parlia-
ment who are continually asking a variety of questions which have no
importance, which seldom get answered, and which are obviously asked
for the mere purpose of giving trouble or annoyance to somebody.
We sometimes endeavour to trace questions of this class to their ulti-
mate result, and we frequently find that they lead to nothing but a
consumption of time, and occasionally not even to that, for they appear
to drop to the ground, like the abandoned offspring of those who are
ashamed to own their parentage.
Mr. Apsley Pellatt now and then puts on the paper a notice of
a question which seems to promise no other result than a little petty
annoyance or trifling embarrassment to somebody or other, who has in
some way alarmed the scruples of this very conscientious patriot.
The other day we observed a notice of a question, which in tracing
the Parliamentary Intelligence, we do not find to have been put,
according to threat, or if it was put, it seems to have been too insig-
nificant to be recorded, with or without the answer that it has—or has
not elicited. The question related to the appointments of four gentlemen
to some offices under the Attorney-General some long time ago, but
we have no clue to the object of the question, or as to whether it was
directed against one or all of the four officials, or against the Attorney-
General ; or if not why not, or how otherwise ?
Since the Government were weak enough to be bulbed into the
revocation of an appointment once made, and to sacrifice an individual
on account of their own fault, as they did in the case of Mr. Stonor,
they may expect 10 be frequently called on to turn people out of their
situations, for every one who holds a place is sure to be the object of
the envy and small malignity of hundreds of others by whom the place
is^ wanted. The dirty trick happily failed in the case of the Recorder
of Brighton, for Lord Palmerston has the sense to know that Judges
and Magistrates cannot in these days be turned in and turned out on
light grounds; for the independence of the Bench is rather too necessary
to the liberty of the subject to be trifled with, for the gratification of
personal spite, or even at the will of the Minister.
SURLY SENTIMENTS.
By a Professed Old Grumbler.
No Woman drinks Beer of her own accord,—she is always “ordered”
to drink it!
Experience is a Pocket-compass that a Fool never thinks of consulting
until he has lost his way.
An Ugly Baby is an impossibility.
When a Man has the Headache, and says “ it’s the salmon,” you may
safely conclude that he has been “drinking like a fish.”
The moment Friendship becomes a Tax, it’s singular, at every fresh
call it makes, how very few persons it finds at home !
The Literary Fund Dinner.
Some difficulty has been encountered in the selection of a fitting
chairman for the approaching solemn festival. The high place was
offered to a very distinguished special pleader, illustrious by his force
of eloquence and gravity of visage. He, however, declined the honour
as, under the circumstances, a little too perilous. At length, however,
the Bishop of Oxford has been prevailed upon to preside. Is not
this pleasing fact an evidence, on the part of the Committee, of a
desire to cast oil upon the troubled waters ?
The Militia in Bed.
combustible. Tee two last articles being particularly
would instantly catch fire, and set the others burning
inflammable,
In a few
Two militia officers, billeted at a public house, refused to sleep in a
double-bedded room. These warriors evidently have no thoughts of
active service: otherwise they should make up their minds to the
chance of sleeping, not in double beds, but in a single bed, and not
sleeping there in twos but in two hundreds. May we be so coarse as
to suggest the bed of glory ? A bed, none of the softest, and tucked up
with a spade. _
“ French Without a Master.”—This is promised to Paris on the
16th inst.
Yon. 28.
5—2
MEDICINES AND HOW NOT TO STOW THEM.
common
may be
MONO
things
enumerated Me-
dicines. These
are either drugs,
or mixtures of
drugs, which are
certain sub-
stances chiefly
vegetable and
mineral, and a
few animal, very
generally em-
_ ployed in curing
diseases. They
are common things here, because diseases are common; and the
demand for drugs and medicines creates the supply in this country,
where the market is stocked by private enterprise. But though
diseases are very common in the Crimea, medicines are not equally
so, so little so indeed, that very lately the answer t.o every appli-
cation for any one ot those articles was, “ We haven’t got any.”
This deficiency was not owing to any parsimony on the part of
the House of Commons, or to absolute want of foresight on the part
of the Government. It was anticipated at the War Office that battles
would involve wounds, that wounds would necessitate dressings, that
hard service would be attended with sickness, and that sickness would
require medicines. But, owing to ignorance of the nature of these
common tilings on the part of certain authorities, very few of the
medicines intended for the troops ever reached them, and might as
well have been thrown to the dogs, as Macbeth desired his attendant
to throw physic, which is another name for medicine. The money
which they cost was of course thrown away too; and as very many
drugs are imported from remote countries, they are, though com-
mon things, uncommonly expensive : so that the amount of money
which has thus been wasted is immense.
To gentlemen at the heads of Departments, medicines generally
present themselves in bottles of coloured liquid, in boxes containing
little pellets called pills, or in small folded papers enveloping powders,
of various smells and tastes, for the most part nasty. The bottles, boxes,
and papers are labelled with directions for the use of their contents, in
regard to which the consequence of any mistake is sometimes serious.
Those gentlemen have also perhaps seen medicines in course of pre-
paration at druggists’ shops, but probably without noticing any of their
sensible properties except their odour ; therefore the following par-
ticulars with respect to ihe common things in question will no doubt
be new to those same gentlemen.
The majority of drugs, of which, as aforesaid, medicines are made,
are soft or brittle substances. None are so hard but that they can be
pounded in a mortar, except steel and other metals, very few of which
are administered in their metallic state. Most of them are easily
crushed and broken, many are soft, pasty, or greasy substances, that
yield to the least pressure ; and a very large proportion of them are
actual fluids, that is to say, substances resembling water in the pro-
perty of being liable to be spilled and lost. They are kept, to a con-
siderable extent, in glass bottles, the breakage of which is often
occasioned by a mere fall; and when a bottle, containing a medicine,
breaks, of course the medicine runs out. Hence, also of course, i
results the wraste of the medicine, but this is not always the only
result.
Among medicines there is one which is called Sulphuric Acid; better
known, as a common thing, by the name of Oil of Vitriol. There is
another named Nitric Acid, or Aqua Fortis. Both these acids are
highly corrosive, and destroy most things which they come into con-
tact with. Not only that, but they actually set some substances on
fire. One of these substances is Oil of Turpentine; which is likewise
a medicine. Sulphuric and Nitric Acids are kept in glass vessels:
they would eat through any other. Therefore in freighting a ship with
medical and ordnance stores, if the poverty of transport were so ex-
treme and utter as to necessitate so ill-assorted a cargo, it would be
unadvkable to stow the shot and shells and medicines together, putting
the former on the top of the latter. For, in the event of the ship’s
pitching much, as in a storm, not only might it be expected that the
cannon balls and the bombs would pound up the drugs and medicines,
one with another, in a premature and promiscuous manner, but also
that they might break, amongst other things, the acid and oil of
'turpentine bottles already mentioned, the contents of which, escaping
and mingling together, would immediately ignite, and run about blazing
m all directions. Among the commonest of common things in medical
stores are gums, oils, ointments, spirits, and ether, which are highly.
moments the shells would be roasting over the medical bonfire, and
they would presently explode, together with the powder-barrels,
scattering burning timbers, broken bottles, amalgamated materia
medica, and dismembered sailors, over the ocean.
The gross official ignorance of common things, and especially of
medicines, considered, it is wonderlul that this catastrophe has not
been itself a common thing m the experience of the transport services.
QUESTIONS THM1 DON'T ANSWER.
There seems to be always a certain number of members of Parlia-
ment who are continually asking a variety of questions which have no
importance, which seldom get answered, and which are obviously asked
for the mere purpose of giving trouble or annoyance to somebody.
We sometimes endeavour to trace questions of this class to their ulti-
mate result, and we frequently find that they lead to nothing but a
consumption of time, and occasionally not even to that, for they appear
to drop to the ground, like the abandoned offspring of those who are
ashamed to own their parentage.
Mr. Apsley Pellatt now and then puts on the paper a notice of
a question which seems to promise no other result than a little petty
annoyance or trifling embarrassment to somebody or other, who has in
some way alarmed the scruples of this very conscientious patriot.
The other day we observed a notice of a question, which in tracing
the Parliamentary Intelligence, we do not find to have been put,
according to threat, or if it was put, it seems to have been too insig-
nificant to be recorded, with or without the answer that it has—or has
not elicited. The question related to the appointments of four gentlemen
to some offices under the Attorney-General some long time ago, but
we have no clue to the object of the question, or as to whether it was
directed against one or all of the four officials, or against the Attorney-
General ; or if not why not, or how otherwise ?
Since the Government were weak enough to be bulbed into the
revocation of an appointment once made, and to sacrifice an individual
on account of their own fault, as they did in the case of Mr. Stonor,
they may expect 10 be frequently called on to turn people out of their
situations, for every one who holds a place is sure to be the object of
the envy and small malignity of hundreds of others by whom the place
is^ wanted. The dirty trick happily failed in the case of the Recorder
of Brighton, for Lord Palmerston has the sense to know that Judges
and Magistrates cannot in these days be turned in and turned out on
light grounds; for the independence of the Bench is rather too necessary
to the liberty of the subject to be trifled with, for the gratification of
personal spite, or even at the will of the Minister.
SURLY SENTIMENTS.
By a Professed Old Grumbler.
No Woman drinks Beer of her own accord,—she is always “ordered”
to drink it!
Experience is a Pocket-compass that a Fool never thinks of consulting
until he has lost his way.
An Ugly Baby is an impossibility.
When a Man has the Headache, and says “ it’s the salmon,” you may
safely conclude that he has been “drinking like a fish.”
The moment Friendship becomes a Tax, it’s singular, at every fresh
call it makes, how very few persons it finds at home !
The Literary Fund Dinner.
Some difficulty has been encountered in the selection of a fitting
chairman for the approaching solemn festival. The high place was
offered to a very distinguished special pleader, illustrious by his force
of eloquence and gravity of visage. He, however, declined the honour
as, under the circumstances, a little too perilous. At length, however,
the Bishop of Oxford has been prevailed upon to preside. Is not
this pleasing fact an evidence, on the part of the Committee, of a
desire to cast oil upon the troubled waters ?
The Militia in Bed.
combustible. Tee two last articles being particularly
would instantly catch fire, and set the others burning
inflammable,
In a few
Two militia officers, billeted at a public house, refused to sleep in a
double-bedded room. These warriors evidently have no thoughts of
active service: otherwise they should make up their minds to the
chance of sleeping, not in double beds, but in a single bed, and not
sleeping there in twos but in two hundreds. May we be so coarse as
to suggest the bed of glory ? A bed, none of the softest, and tucked up
with a spade. _
“ French Without a Master.”—This is promised to Paris on the
16th inst.
Yon. 28.
5—2