364 Analysis of Scientific Books. 
vantage as the celebrated Spa at Leamington. The Physician, however, 
well knows that it is the journey, the change of scene and habits, the varie- 
ties of pursuit and amusement, that are the real remedies of our watering - 
places : and that, on the other hand, the recommendation of change of air 
and habits will rarely inspire confidence, unless apparently associated with 
medical treatment. 
How our Physicians, who migrate in the summer and autumn 
to the bathing and watering-places, will like the home truths 
which Dr. Paris so candidly expounds, we know not; but it 
has always appeared to us that their presence is highly neces- 
sary, not to direct the dose of the water, or the number of ab- 
lutions, but to obviate the mischief which continually arises 
from sea bathing improperly indulged in, and from drenching 
the stomach, and weakening its powers, by large draughts of 
dilute saline solutions. 
Under the head “ Ambiguity of Nomenclature,” Dr. Paris 
has collected some good instances of the mistakes that have 
occurred from the same name having been at different periods 
applied to different substances; and it is not uncommon to 
find a word originally used to express general characters, sub- 
sequently become the name of a specific substance in which 
such characters are predominant. ‘The term ‘ Apcevixoy,” from 
which the word arsenic is derived, was originally applied to all 
poisonous minerals, and arsenic being especially powerful, it 
became, in process of time, limited to orpiment, the most com- 
monly occurring compound of that metal. The term verbena, 
our author tells us, originally denoted all those herbs that were 
held sacred as being employed in the rites of sacrifice; but as 
one herb was usually adopted on those occasions, the word 
verbena came to denote that particular herb only. Vétriol, ori- 
ginally denoting any crystalline substance, was afterwards 
limited to particular salts. Opium, which in its primitive sense 
signifies juice, (from o7ec, succus,) is now limited to one species, 
that of the poppy. Towards the conclusion of this article of his 
historical introduction, Dr. Paris touches, too lightly we think, 
upon the mischief that has arisen, and that is likely to arise, 
from the introduction of modern chemical nomenclature into the 
Materia Medica and Pharmacy. We shall not digress into any 
remarks upon the merits or demerits of that nomenclature as 
employed by chemical writers, but we are happy in this oppor- 
tunity of expressing our decided opinion against its adoption in 
the Pharmacopeeiz issued by the College of Physicians, and 
this for several reasons. In the first place, it is not to be ex- 
pected that physicians, in full practice, should have leisure, 
even if they had inclination, to follow the progress of chemical 
discovery, and the consequent fluctuations of chemical theory 
with their correspondent changes of nomenclature. In the next 
place, essential as a knowledge of chemistry is to the medical 
student, and zealous as many of those students are in its acqui- 
