Dispensatory of the United States. 1 55 



commercial history, the state in which it reaches us, its sensible prop- 

 erties, its chemical composition and relations, the changes which it 

 undergoes by time and exposure, its accidental or fraudulent adultera- 

 tions, its medicinal properties and application, its economical uses, and 

 the pharmaceutical treatment to which it is subjected. If a chemical 

 preparation, the mode and principles of its manufacture are indicated, 

 in addition to the other particulars. If a poison, and likely to be ac- 

 cidentally taken, or purposely employed as such, its peculiar toxico- 

 logical effects, together with the mode of counteracting them, are in- 

 dicated ; and the best means of detecting its presence by reagents 

 are explained." 



We have deemed it right to let the authors speak for themselves, 

 in relation to the plan of their work, by extracting thus largely from 

 the preface. • Such a plan could not be followed out without render- 

 ing the work necessarily of greater size, than any other book of this 

 nature which has fallen under our notice. It is an octavo of one 

 thousand and seventy three pages, and these of rather unusually large 

 size. Dr. Duncan's (Edinburgh) Dispensatory contains, indeed, 

 about fifty more pages, but the pages of the work under our review 

 are nearly one third larger. The American work, moreover, con- 

 sists entirely of a commentary on the officinal articles, except sixteen 

 pages on pharmaceutical operations, introductory to the second part; 

 whereas the British dispensatories are encumbered with an introduc- 

 tion to elementary chemistry, which it is probable few persons read, 

 inasmuch as more ample or extended treatises on chemistry must be 

 studied by those who aspire to a correct or intelligent understanding 

 of the theory or practice of pharmacy. 



The sixteen pages to which we have alluded, will be found to 

 confer no small value on the work. They consist of lucid directions 

 to the pharmaceutical student, on the best means of conducting his 

 operations, and are quite a multum in parvo on the choice and man- 

 agement of apparatus, on collecting and drying plants, on the pre- 

 servation of medicines, on weights and measures, and other analo- 

 gous and useful matters. This addition to the book, we learn, from 

 a note in the preface, is from Mr. Daniel B. Smith, the president of 

 the College. 



The authors have not departed, in the arrangement of their mate- 

 rials, from the course usually pursued in the best pharmacopoeias and 

 dispensatories. Under the head of Materia Medica, they have treat- 

 ed, in strictly alphabetical order, of medicines in the state only in 



