October 13, 192 1] 



NATURE 



203 



The Science of Pharmacognosy. 



Handbuch der Pharmako gnosie . By A. Tschirch. 

 Band III. Lieferung- i, 1921. 10 marks. 

 Lieferung 1-4 and Lieferung 9-37. (1908-14.) 

 2 marks each. (Leipzig : Chr. Herm. Tauch- 

 nitz. ) 



AFTER an interval of four years Prof. 

 Tschirch has continued the publication of 

 his compendious " Handbook of Pharmacognosy " 

 and issued the first part of the last volume. About 

 twenty parts will constitute this section, which 

 will deal with the drugs containing phloroglucin 

 derivatives, tannins, alkaloids, antigens (tox- 

 albumins), bitter principles, vesicants, colouring 

 principles, resins, and a few other groups. Part i. 

 deals with such drugs as male fern, cusso, kamala, 

 cutch, gambier, and kino. 



Pharmacists and all who are interested in drugs 

 may look forward to the approaching completion 

 of what is undoubtedly the most ambitious literary 

 attempt that has ever been made in the field of 

 pharmacognosy. By pharmacognosy the author 

 means the science which has for its object the 

 acquirement of a complete knowledge of animal 

 and vegetable drugs, their correct description, 

 and their rational grouping under general head- 

 ings. Pharmacognosy, according to Prof. 

 Tschirch, should no longer remain a collection of 

 individual drug descriptions, however perfect they 

 may be ; these must be welded together into an 

 independent science many of the problems of 

 which are capable of experimental solution. To 

 attain this object, chemistry, botany, zoology, 

 physics, and every science that can give assist- 

 ance must be laid under contribution. With this 

 end in view the author, as is well known, has 

 laboured with his pupils in the University of Berne 

 for the last twenty-five years, directing during that 

 time innumerable researches chiefly in the fields of 

 the botany and chemistry of drugs. 



The work is divided into general and applied 

 pharmacognosy. Under the first heading the 

 author deals with the cultivation of medicinal 

 plants, the collection and preparation of the parts 

 used as drugs, the commerce, sorting, packing, 

 etc., and with the subsidiary sciences of botany, 

 zoolog>', chemistry, physics, geography, history, 

 ethnology, etymology, etc. Most of these sub- 

 divisions have had special terms coined for them ; 

 thus cultivation is designated "pharmacoergasia," 

 commerce "pharmacoemporia," chemistry "phar- 

 macochemistry," and so on. Pharmacoergasia 

 (1 17 pages) consists of a compilation of facts con- 

 cerning the cultivation of various drugs, and is 

 a somewhat heterogeneous collection the system- 

 XO. 271 1. VOL. 108I 



atic arrangement of which would be attended with 

 considerable difficulty. Commerce (42 pages) lends 

 itself better to separate treatment, and the section 

 is exceedingly interesting. The subject of the 

 history of drugs, to which no fewer than 558 pages 

 are devoted, also makes excellent reading ; under 

 this heading the history of drugs from the earliest 

 records to modern times is fully discussed. 



Among the subsidiary sciences. Prof. Tschirch 

 regards pharmacochemistry as the most im- 

 portant, since the value of a drug depends, in 

 the majority of cases, on the constituents con- 

 tained in it. For this reason the classification of 

 drugs should be based on the relationships of the 

 chief constituents. Such a classification has been 

 adopted by the author in the second part of his 

 work (applied pharmacognosy), although he 

 admits that in his opinion only i per cent, of the 

 drugs known have been sufficiently investigated. 

 Under this system the larger groups, such as the 

 sugars, starches, celluloses, aliphatic acids, fats, 

 volatile oils, resins, aromatic phenols, tannins, 

 glucosides, and alkaloids, are subdivided into 

 smaller ones ; thus the group of alkaloidal drugs 

 is subdivided according to the constitution of the 

 principal alkaloid. It would therefore be impos- 

 sible to classify correctly any alkaloidal drug until 

 the constitution of its principal alkaloid was 

 known. The rapid strides that are now being 

 made in our knowledge of the chemistry of drugs 

 are reducing this objection to a chemical classi- 

 fication, but a very long time must elapse before 

 a satisfactory position can be attained. 



The treatment of each individual drug in the 

 second part is very complete. First the syn- 

 onyms are given ; then the etymology, the botani- 

 cal source, the pests to which the plant is subject, 

 its cultivation, harvesting, commerce, morpho- 

 logy, anatomy, characters of the powder, chem- 

 istry, adulterations, uses, and so on, are discussed 

 in the fullest detail, the bibliography being par- 

 ticularly complete. In the case of rhubarb the 

 space devoted to the description is thirty pages, 

 including numerous illustrations. The weakest 

 point is certainly the microscopical characters of 

 the powdered drugs ; these are usually dismissed 

 in a few lines, the author relying almost entirely 

 on his description of the anatomy. 



Even with the assistance afforded by his col- 

 leagues and pupils, Prof. Tschirch 's task has been 

 a stupendous one; he has accomplished it with 

 conspicuous success, and the handbook will doubt- 

 less be for many years a mine of information for 

 pharmacognosists. Nevertheless, the advisability 

 of publishing so large a work in a succession of 

 parts appearing at somewhat distant intervals may 



