THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 187 



whole, very serious. In any case, it cannot appear as other than trivial 

 when considered beside the advantages of intelligent specialization already 

 referred to. 



Lastly, we have the advantage in the Pfianzenfamilien of a rational and 

 well-digested system of nomenclature, replacing the chaos of names of the 

 Genera Plantarum. 



The results of the more favorable conditions enumerated are strikingly 

 apparent to one who uses the German work after having been accustomed 

 for years to the use of the English one. We find, excluding the post- 

 scripts of both works, 280 families and 8,218 genera recognized by the new 

 work, against 200 families and 7,316 genera in the old. Ten to twenty per 

 cent, of this increase in genera is probably a fair allowance for discovery, 

 the remainder being due to a greater amount of segregation, as the result 

 of more thorough study of the composition of the genera. As to the in- 

 crease in the number of the families it must be credited almost wholly to 

 the latter cause. 



In connection with this change, we note the almost complete disappear- 

 ance of the hodgepodge families and genera which were characteristic ot 

 the Genera Plantarum, with the full recognition of its authors, and which 

 have always constituted a subject of merriment. The Saxifragaceae and 

 Olacinacese were yawning waste-baskets which might receive any genera 

 not subject to a clear understanding. 



The change in the order of arrangement is so great as to constitute a 

 sore trial to those who have become habituated to the older one. There 

 can be no serious question, however, of its correctness. Relationships have 

 been well studied, and however imperfect may be the attempt to form a 

 natural sequence, it has been made, and its very failures will become the 

 germs of discovery. 



In view of the considerations above set forth, the writer has no hesita- 

 tioa in urging upon the Pharmacopoeia Committee that they sustain their 

 progressive record by adopting the authority of the modern work. 



Before closing I may say a few words concerning the merits of the two 

 works merely as books. The results of this comparison are as unfavor- 

 able to the German work as our previous one has been favorable. Clumsi- 

 ness, inconvenience and lack of common sense are grave faults in most 

 German work, and introduced to one which required to be used like the 

 Pfianzenfamilien they tend to detract in a high degree from its usefulness. 

 The first fatal error which we notice is in so dividing up the work that it 

 becomes necessary to have several distinct indices for one volume. Di- 

 rectly upon the top of this, the almost inconceivable folly has been com- 

 mitted of making no provision for finding the different parts of the vol- 

 ume, except by turning over consecutively more or less of a thousand 

 pages, the regular German method of working. When the required part 



