LITERARY NOTICES. 



127 



Pharmaceutische Rundschau. (Pharma- 

 ceutical Review.) Published by Dr. Fr. 

 Hoffmann, 64 Ann Street, New York. 

 Monthly. Pp. 24. $2 a year. 



This new publication, conducted by a 

 gentleman of the best standing in his pro- 

 fession, starts out with the promise of being 

 a journal of a high order and a valuable ad- 

 dition to the literature of scientific special- 

 ties. It is devoted to the scientific and pro- 

 fessional interests of pharmacy and kindred 

 branches in the United States, and labors 

 with well-directed vigor in every depart- 

 ment for the maintenance and elevation of 

 the standard of scientific attainment in its 

 profession. The February number contains 

 editorial articles on " Pharmacy and Public 

 Sanitary Conditions," and "Pharmacy and 

 Homoeopathy." In the March number the ed- 

 itor, under the heading " Kurpf uscherei ? " 

 which we might translate " Cure-bungling" 

 presents a well-considered and well-tem- 

 pered discussion of the propriety of allow- 

 ing apothecaries to dispense medicines, and 

 of requiring them to qualify themselves to do 

 so with discretion. The two numbers con- 

 tain original contributions on the testing of 

 liquorice-juice and of quinine-pills, sorghum- 

 sugar, mass-analysis, the " Pharmacopoeia of 

 the United States," and the preparation of 

 medicinal doses by compression. A consid. 

 erable part of each number is occupied with 

 the systematic presentation in a compressed 

 form of notable facts in the progress of the 

 science as currently recorded in the various 

 journals of this and other countries, and to 

 the proceedings of pharmaceutical societies 

 and associations. 



Whence, What, Where ? A View of the 

 Origin, Nature, and Destiny of Man. 

 By James R. Nichols, M. D., A. M., Edit- 

 or of " The Boston Journal of Chem- 

 istry." Third edition, revised. Boston : 

 A. Williams & Co. Pp. 19S. Price, $1. 



This thoughtful volume consists of incul- 

 cations, reflections, and speculations touch- 

 ing those questions of the origin, nature, 

 and destiny of man that have ever been re- 

 garded as of transcendent interest, now 

 man has originated, what is the true con- 

 stitution of his being, and how he stands 

 related to the great indefinite future, are 

 inquiries that, on the one hand, find simple 

 answers in the beliefs of uninstructcd people, 



and which, on the other hand, have tasked 

 the highest philosophy of all ages, with no 

 final agreement. But, although there re- 

 mains, perhaps, as much conflict as ever over 

 these problems, it would be wrong to say 

 that the outcome of inquiry in all these di- 

 rections has been futile. Certainly, as re- 

 gards the whence and the what of humanity, 

 a great deal is now known of which men 

 in earlier times were profoundly ignorant. 

 Man's nature that is, the laws of his con- 

 stitution has been studied with fruitful re- 

 sults, and the laws and the knowledge thus 

 obtained have thrown a not entirely uncer- 

 tain light upon the question of his origin. 

 Of one thing we have positive assurance : 

 the order of phenomenal nature, of which 

 man is a part, is no inscrutable secret ; it is 

 open to the research of reason, and it is 

 capable of being understood as far as the 

 nature of human intelligence will permit. 

 The field is, therefore, open in which we 

 may verify and extend the inquiries already 

 begun in regard to what man essentially is 

 and whence he has originated the field of 

 orderly, phenomenal, explorable nature. 



But there are those and they are pos- 

 sibly more numerous in these days than ever 

 before who maintain that man is shut into 

 the present sphere by inexorable limits, and 

 that, while he remains the being'he is, he can 

 never know that which is beyond the cosmic- 

 al sphere of his observation and experience. 

 They hold that this human intelligence is 

 finite, and therefore by its quality is re- 

 stricted to finite things, and can never grasp 

 what is beyond the finite. They claim that, 

 in its very essence, knowing is but a recog- 

 nition of finite relations ; that mind itself 

 has been evolved and constituted by inter- 

 course with nature, and is without capaci- 

 ties to deal with any other sphere of being. 

 They insist that, as the human mind is finite 

 and limited, it must stop somewhere by 

 virtue of inherent incapacity, and that this 

 boundary is the phenomenal sphere of be- 

 ing. That there may be other orders of 

 being, and other universes beyond, they do 

 not deny ; but they say that our relations 

 to them can never include a knowledge of 

 them in the sense in which the term knowl- 

 edge is applied to the surrounding order of 

 things. 



But the protest against this circumscrip- 



