REVIEW. 
301 
points to which the student’s attention should be directed are very concisely but clearly 
stated. It might, perhaps, have been desired that these operations were directed to be 
performed on larger quantities of material than the few grains ordered to be used in a 
test-tube or on platinum foil, so as to admit of a fuller examination of the products; 
but the object throughout the course has been to avoid unnecessary expense for material 
or apparatus, the student being taught to work with simple and inexpensive means. 
Having gone through the synthetical reactions of potassium,—not, however, including 
.any one in which potassium itself is used,—the student is next taken to the reactions of 
potassium having analytical interest, four experiments being described under this head. 
In this way potassium is studied from two points of view, and the other chemical sub¬ 
stances treated of, similarly, first, with reference to reactions utilized in manufacturing 
preparations of the substance, and, secondly, with reference to reactions utilized in 
searching for it. The author, in speaking of the chemical preparations of the British 
Pharmacopoeia, says, “ The processes by which every officiual chemical substance is pre¬ 
pared has already been described, and the strict chemical character of the processes illus¬ 
trated by experiments, and explained by aid of equations.” We have not succeeded, 
however, in finding any notice of the preparation of oxalate of cerium. 
The general plan of the work, the method of leading the student from one subject to 
another as he has been prepared for each successive step by a few simple illustrative 
experiments, and the way in which the requisite explanations are given, without any 
unnecessary perplexities being presented in the early parts of the course, are deserving 
of the highest commendation. 
One of the difficulties the author had to contend with was that of adopting a judi¬ 
cious and acceptable course with reference to chemical notation and nomenclature. He 
states in the preface that “ the chemical notation of the work is in accordance with mo¬ 
dern theories.” He also says, “Chemical nomenclature has been modernized to the 
extent of defining the alkaline and earthy salts as those of potassium, sodium, ammo¬ 
nium, barium, calcium, magnesium, and aluminium instead of potash, soda, ammonia, 
baryta, lime, magnesia, and alumina. The author confidently believes that this change, 
extensively adopted by scientific meu, will be accepted and become popular with phar¬ 
maceutical chemists, as it is a step in the direction of consistency, simplicity, and truth. 
Hitherto the names of salts have included metals and metallic oxides, as sulphate of 
copper and sulphate of potash; henceforward they will include the names of metals 
only, thus—sulphate of copper and sulphate of potassium.” 
In a book treating not only of the composition, but also of the constitution of che¬ 
mical substances, and intended for the use of chemical students, it would be expected 
that the theories which appear to be most favourably received among chemists should 
be adopted, and that the names and signs used for distinguishing the various bodies re¬ 
ferred to should be, as far as possible, consistent with such theories. Even if it should 
be found impossible exclusively to apply and adhere to the modern system, there would 
be no great hardship in requiring of the student that he should to some extent become 
acquainted with more than one system, old names and views that are no longer consi¬ 
dered orthodox being required to be used in our communications with those persons 
whose science was acquired before modern theories and names were invented. The 
change of names suggested and generally adopted by Dr. Attfield is certainly that which 
would be most easily effected in pharmacy. It is, as he says, a step in the direction of 
consistency and simplicity, but whether it is also in the direction of truth it is difficult 
to say. The name sulphate of potash has hitherto been applied to a salt which was 
supposed to consist of oxide of potassium and sulphuric acid, but modern chemists do 
not admit that it contains either potash or sulphuric acid. The name sulphate of 
copper was used in a similar sense to that of sulphate of potash, but as there is no 
single word to represent oxide of copper, the word oxide was omitted for convenience, 
but the abbreviated name was not intended to imply that the salt consisted only of copper 
and sulphuric acid. It is proposed under the new system that the name sulphate of 
copper should be retained, and that it should be represented by the symbolic formula 
CuS O,, the Cu representing copper and the S0 4 representing, not sulphuric acid, but 
what the author would call the acidulous radical of sulphuric acid and of sulphates. 
He would say of it that it is the grouping characteristic of all sulphates, and contained 
therefore in what we have been accustomed to call sulphate of potash, but which, ac¬ 
cording to this view, is more correctly called sulphate of potassium (K 2 S0 4 ). By a 
