EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii 



obtained the first prize (the gold medal) for his essay on the 

 best method of preparing infusions and decoctions (Brande's 

 Archiv, vol. 35), a treatise equally remarkable for the extreme 

 accuracy and care with which his experiments were conducted, 

 and for the judgment displayed in his conclusions. In the 

 year 1832 Simon came from the Rhine, where he had been 

 practising as apothecary in different towns (Cleve, Diisscldorf, 

 Coin, and Deutz,) to Berlin, where he passed his examination 

 as apothecary with the highest credit, and where, in addition 

 to the practical department of his profession, he attended 

 lectures on chemistry and pharmacy. He now published a 

 small pamphlet entitled ' A brief Examination of Professor 

 Kranichfeld^s Treatise on the necessity of a Fundamental 

 Knowledge of Pharmacy in relation to sound Medical Practice,' 

 one of the most argumentative, and -powerful replies that 

 Kranichfeld's absurd and unfounded accusation against the 

 German apothecary system elicited. From this period till the 

 year 1838 he devoted himself to study, having, with this view, 

 given up his public pharmaceutical avocations in the year 1835. 

 He attended, for six terms, lectures at the High School of Berlin, 

 on natural history, physics, mathematics, history, and philosophy; 

 he likewise published, conjointly with Dr. Meklenburg, a tabular 

 view of chemistry (Berlin, Hirschwald.) Most of his leisure 

 time at this period was devoted to toxicology, a subject on 

 which he and his friend Dr. Sobernheim published a treatise 

 which is regarded throughout Germany as the standard work 

 on everything connected with poisons and poisoning. Some 

 of the most important original investigations on which this 

 work was based were originally published in Poggendorff's 

 Annalen, vol. 40. 



On the 3d of October, 1838, Simon received the degree of 

 Doctor of Philosophy for his celebrated thesis ' De Lactis 

 Muliebris ratione chemica et physiologica,' which, in the course 

 of the same year, was published, with considerable additions, in 



