350 Analysis of Scientific Books. 
hage, carrots, raisins and figs, bay-berries and mulberries, opoponax 
and sagapenum, storax, oyster-shells and toxicodendron; why, in 
short, so much of the old lumber is suffered to encumber this new 
work, while so many useful novelties, which have a place in foreign 
pharmacopeias, are omitted. We are fully aware of the mischief 
and absurdity of stuffing every new crudity into a pharmacopeeia ; 
the Parisian codex amply proves that; but when we know that all 
apothecaries are obliged to keep sulphate of quinina and hydriodate 
of potash, and acetate of morphia, and that several Fellows of the 
College, justly eminent for their skill and extensive practice, prescribe 
and ‘haye faith in these compounds, there are, we think, grounds for 
the questions we have humbly submitted. Our experience, how- 
ever, obliges us to admit that there must be some hidden obstacles 
and unseen difficulties in the way of compiling a good and rational 
pharmacopeeia ; for, taking it all in all, that of the London college is 
perhaps the best extant. Whether to the prevalence of a pugnacious 
diathesis, and the impossibility of deciding, when doctors disagree ; 
or to the want of co-operation among scientific and practical men, or 
to what other cause we are to attribute this fatality, we shall not now 
Stop to inquire; perhaps those who have access to the minute-book 
of the Committee of the College, are the only persons who can solve 
the problem. 
Like ancient Gaul, the Pharmacopeia is divided into three parts : 
one assigned to some preliminary matters respecting weights and 
measures ; the second to the Materia Medica; and the last to the 
preparations and compounds, We shall follow Mr. Phillips’ example 
in passing over the two former divisions without remark, The third 
is subdivided into sections, of which the first treats of * Acids,” alpha- 
betically arranged. 
The term ‘“ diluted acetic acid” is properly enough applied to dis- 
tilled vinegar, but the process of distillation might well have been 
rejected ; for all medical purposes a dilute acid, composed of 1 part 
of the concentrated acetic acid, contained in the Materia Medica, and 
four parts of water, is preferable. Of this mixture, or of distilled 
vinegar, the sp. gr. should be about 1009, and 1000 parts should 
saturate 145 of crystallized carbonate of soda: 50 grains of real 
acetic acid saturate, according to our translator, 153 grains of this 
salt, and upon this datum the following is the composition of the 
dilute acid of different specific gravities : 
Sp. Grav. Real Acid. Water. 
1007 3.42 96.58 
1009 4.73 95.27 
1043 23.67 76.33 
1046 28.43 ye Sy 
Of these acids, the two first are the average strength of distilled 
vinegar, and the two last that of the concentrated acetic acid, as now 
generally prepared by the vinegar-makers from pyroligneous acid. 
