There has been much discussion concerning the best method of making these pills so as to keep them from oxidation. Honey was for a long time generally used as the excipient, but glycerin and sugar are generally preferred with gum acacia or tragacanth. Pilula Ferri, B.P., is a substitute for Blaud’s pills. THE CHELSEA PENSIONER. An electuary for rheumatism bearing this title was evidently popular under the above name in the early part of the nineteenth century, but I have not been able to discover where or when or with whom it originated. The compilers of books of formulas naturally copy from each other, and consequently a legend once started is likely to become crystallised. In _The Chemist and Druggist_, of June 13th, 20th, and 27th, 1896, an attempt was made to track this medicine to its origin, and a number of old formulas were sent in by correspondents. The statement is made in many books that the compound acquired its name from the circumstance that the recipe for it was given by a Chelsea Pensioner to Lord Amherst for gout and proved so successful that Lord Amherst gave him £300 and an annuity of £20. Sometimes this story associated Lord Anson with the pensioner and the amounts given in gratitude varied from £300 to 500 guineas, with an annuity sometimes of £20, sometimes of £30, and occasionally of £100. The then living descendants of Lords Amherst and Anson were written to by _The Chemist and Druggist_, but neither could give any information. It rather looks as if the fiction were concocted as an advertisement in the days when the electuary was a proprietary medicine, if it ever was. The earliest formula traced in the correspondence referred to was given in Gray’s Supplement, 1821. This ran:--Pulv. gum. guaiaci, ʒi; pulv. rhei, ʒij; pulv. pot. bitart., 1 oz.; flor. sulph., 2 oz.; one nutmeg, and 1 lb. of honey. Of this, the dose was two tablespoonfuls night and morning. Sometimes pulv. pot. nit. is substituted for pulv. pot. bit.; probably a mistake of a copyist. In other formulas mustard appears instead of nutmeg; perhaps a similar slip for myristica. Treacle occasionally takes the place of honey, and the proportions of the ingredients vary considerably.