New London Pharmacopeta. 849 
II, A Translation of the Pharmacopeia of the Royal College of Physi- 
cians of London, 1824. With Notes and Illustrations, By Richard 
Phillips, F.R.S. L. and E. &c., &c. 
Considering the materials he has had to work upon, Mr. Phillips 
has really given us a very useful book, in his translation, as he calls 
it, of the Pharmacopeia; and has shown something of alchemical 
power, in respect to the contents of the meagre original. We are 
‘ well aware of the talents that exist in the College of Physicians, 
and are therefore utterly at a loss to account for the careless imbe~ 
cility of the productions which are, from time to time, sent forth 
under its auspices. Where is Dr. Wollaston? where Dr. Young ? 
What has become of Dr. Maton and Dr. Paris? have they no in- 
’ terest in the public character of the body which they adorn; or are 
they merely careless of its reputation ; or do they leave so weighty a 
concern as the publication of the Pharmacopeia to the beadle and 
the bookseller? These are questions asked every day, and every 
where, and we profess our entire inability to offer to them any 
plausible reply. That they are not unjustly asked, we are sorry to say 
is but too manifest, from the present edition, which we understand to 
be the production of a Committee of the College; and although 
some tendency towards improvement is manifest in several of the 
processes, the general execution of the work is very unworthy of its 
source, 
The old preface of the edition of 1809 is unaccountably reprinted, 
and attached to the present work; had this preface contained a 
history of pharmacy, or a review of former pharmacopeeias, its 
retention might have been excusable; but it is, in fact, a poor and 
empty production, and particularly inappropriate to the present 
state of pharmaceutical science, which has lately made such rapid 
and important progress. ‘To illustrate and expound this progress 
should have been the business of the preface, if any were thought 
necessary. ‘Ihe researches which have led us toa tolerably accurate 
knowledge of the substance upon which the activity of opium depends, 
and those which have taught us the existence of distinct salifiable 
bases in the greater number of narcotic vegetables; the inquiries 
instituted with so much success respecting the principles upon which 
the active powers of the varieties of Cinchona depend ; and those which 
have taught us the importance of iodine, and some of its combinations, 
in the treatment of glandular diseases ; all these subjects should have 
been touched upon in the preface, if preface there needs must be ; 
we ought also to have been informed why the college have not in= 
troduced any of these new and active substances; whether they 
consider them ineffectual, or dangerously active; why they have 
altogether passed them by; why they have retained in the list of 
their Materia Medica, sorrel and wood-sorrel, marsh-mallow and 
coltsfoot, bistort and cuckoo-flowers, centaury, contrayerva and cow- 
Vou, XVII. 2B 
