342 
REVIEWS. 
“ Test .—The unequally oblique base, and freedom from bitterness, distinguish the 
senna from the Arghel leaves, which are also thicker, stiver, greyer, and more 
wrinkled.” 
A Dictionary of Practical Medicine. Comprising Special Pathology, the Principles 
of Therapeutics, the Nature and Treatment of Diseases, Morbid Structures, and the 
Disorders especially incidental to Climates, to Paces, to Sex, and to the Epochs of 
Life: and with an Appendix of Approved Formulce. The whole forming a Digest 
of Pathology and Therapeutics. By James Copland, M.D., F.R.S., etc. etc. 
Abridged by the Author, assisted by James C. Copland, M.E.C.S. and M.S.A., and 
throughout brought down to the Present state of Medical Science. London : Long¬ 
mans, Green, and Co. 1866. Pp. 1537. 
The original work, of which the present is qn abstract, was published in 1858, in four 
large and thick volumes, and when we consider the enormous amount of labour which 
such a treatise necessarily involved, we cannot but regard it as one of the most wonderful 
works ever accomplished by an unassisted author in this country or elsewhere. This 
original ‘Dictionary of Practical Medicine,’ by Dr. Copland, is known and appreciated 
wherever the English language is spoken, but its great size and price prevented 
numerous practitioners from adding it to their libraries. Hence, to reach this class, 
and also to bring down the subjects treated of in the former work to the present 
state of medical science, this abridged edition has been issued. It is scarcely within 
our province to examine very critically such a work, but after carefully reading several 
of the articles we can testify to its general accuracy, and to its being on the whole a 
very accurate digest of the present state of medical science. Amidst so much that is 
good, we scarcely like to allude to the very brief and necessarily imperfect notice which 
is given of the laryngoscope and its value in the diagnosis and pathology of laryngeal 
Disease. Surely, a subject of such importance as laryngoscopy,'which had already given 
rise to several treatises, deserved more than the few lines the author has devoted to it. 
At the end of the volume we have a very complete Appendix of Formula;, which the 
pharmaceutist may frequently refer to with great advantage. 
The Surgeon’s Vade Mecum : a Manual of Modern Surgery. By Robert Druitt. 
Ninth Edition, much improved, and illustrated by Three Hundred and Sixty highly- 
finished Wood Engravings. London : Henry Renshaw, 356, Strand ; John Churchill 
and Sons, New Burlington Street. 1865. 
A volume, the first edition of which was published more than a quarter of a century 
since, and has now reached its ninth edition, is substantial evidence in itself of 
its popularity, and the best criterion of its merits. From a careful perusal we are 
enabled to say that this edition has been much improved, and is a faithful representation 
of the present advanced state of Surgery. A work like this, which is at once concise 
clearly written, and up to the state of our knowledge of surgical science and art at the 
period of its publication, cannot but prove a great boon to general practitioners and 
others, whose time is too much occupied with professional labours to allow of their 
studying larger and special treatises. We know also from personal experience, having 
used it as a text-book nearly twenty years since, that it is admirably suited to stu¬ 
dents attending lectures, or who are preparing for their examinations. Our province is 
however, more especially with pharmaoeutists, and to them we especially recommend the 
perusal of the Appendix of Formula? at the end of the volume. This has evidently been 
compiled with great care and discretion, and contains accurate transcripts of the original 
formulae of many eminent physicians and surgeons, as Abernethy, Sir B. Brodie, Sir A. 
Cooper, Dover, Good, Moses Griffith, Marshall Hall, Heberden, Hooper, Hope, Jephson" 
Locock, Plummer, Prout, Scudamore, etc. etc. Most of these famous medicines are now 
in common use and not a few of them have been adopted, with certain alterations in 
our Pharmacopoeias. 
In an interesting chapter in the body of the volume, “ On the Means of Producing 
Insensibility to Pain,” we are pleased to find that notice is taken of the trial of the 
inhalation of the fumes of chloric ether, as an anaesthetic, by Mr. Jacob Bell, before 
the value of chloroform for such a purpose had been established by Dr. Simpson. 
