232 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



ing them a course of study, such as the 

 Post Graduate now furnishes, so as to 

 keep the professional and scientific spirit 

 alive. 



We print with this number two plates, 

 which were received too late to appear 

 with the article on Saw Palmetto, which 

 was printed in the July issue of the 

 Alumni Journal. The drawings are bv 

 Mr. W. H. Bastedo, Ph. G., Class of '94, 

 and are kindly loaned by the New Jersey 

 State Association, through the courtesy 

 of Mr. W. A. Alpers. 



PHARMACY RESEARCH. 



"With regard to research; the duty 

 which is incumbent upon every man to 

 do something either to increase the ag- 

 gregate amount, or to render more exact 

 and scientific the knowledge which is in 

 the possession of his calling cannot be 

 too seriously taken to heart by pharma- 

 cists. It is a great mistake, however, to 

 suppose that at any given period a very 

 large number of men are capable of doing 

 original work, or of making discoveries. 

 It must be a sufficient daily task for 

 most men to keep abreast of the discov- 

 eries of others, and to have ready for the 

 practical affairs of daily duty a suffici- 

 ently intimate acquaintance with the 

 large body of accumulated facts. If this 

 is the case with men of mature age and 

 experience, how much more so must it 

 be with young men ? One of the great- 

 est mistakes connected with modern 

 scientific education is the inducement 

 which has been given to young students 

 to write and to talk before they have read 

 and thought. 



Occasionally it may happen that an in- 

 spired genius may work upon some 

 original line, or wrest a brilliant discov- 

 ery from the regions of the unknown, 

 without having performed the drudgery 

 of learning what others have done in the 



same field of labor; but as a rule, with 

 but very few exceptions, the attempt to 

 make young students pursue research 

 will not be successful. The function of 

 education should be to make men accur- 

 rate observers, so that they may have 

 confidence that they see what they ap- 

 pear to do; accurate thinkers, so that 

 they may reason with logical precision 

 from the facts which they had observed; 

 and, above all, accurate manipulators, so 

 that they may use the instruments of 

 science in a manner to eliminate a very 

 common source of error, faulty workman- 

 ship. The balance and the burette and 

 the microscope require more constant 

 and prolonged practice to learn their ac- 

 curate use than does the spade or the 

 trowel. Education should aim at giving 

 a sound and extensive foundation in the 

 theory and practice of the science basis 

 of their protession, and should not force 

 them prematurely into an assumption of 

 research. — {Extract from the President's 

 address at the British Phar. Conference.) 



BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. 



Register of Alumni and Annual Announce- 

 ment of the School of Pharmacy, University of 

 Michigan, twenty-eighth year, 1895-96. 



Monatsblatt der New Yorker Deutschen Apo- 

 theker Verein, August, 1895. 



Fifth Annual Directory of The Scientific Alli- 

 ance of New York. 



Proceedings of the Alabama Pharmaceutical 

 Association, 1895. 



Seventy-fifth Annual Announcement of the 

 Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, 1895. 



The Apothecary, July, 1895. 



British and Colonial Druggist, August. 



"The College of Pharmacy of the City of New 

 York," by Prof. H. H. Rusby, M. D. 



Melathin is the name given to a glucoside 

 isolated by Greenish from Nigela Sativa. It 

 resembles Sapatoxin, obtained from Quillaja 

 bark, and is regarded by Kobert and Schulz as 

 one of the series of Saponines ; it is, however, 

 more toxic than others of the same series. 



