REVIEW. 
806 
that much may be done to obviate the consequences of the exhaustion of the soil which 
at present takes place. He especially recommends sowing the soil with cruciform 
plants for a year or two, and digging these in as green manure. M. Marcband, as a 
more direct remedy for the present evil, strongly recommends the employment of sul¬ 
phuretted hydrogen for the destruction of the Phylloxera. At present all is perplex.t/. 
Antidote of Nicotine. —M. Armand proposes that the deleterious effects of the 
use of tobacco should be counteracted, if not entirely annihilated, by moistening tobacco, 
while undergoing the various preparations and fermentations previous to its delivery to 
the consumer, with a strong infusion, or other preparation, of watercresses ; since the 
author has discovered that this vegetable contains principles which, without destroying 
the peculiar aroma of tobacco, destroy the deleterious effects of nicotine.— Chemical 
News. 
REVIEW. 
Chemistry : General, Medical, and Pharmaceutical, including the Chemistry 
of the British Pharmacopoeia. By John Attfield, Ph.D., F.C.S. Second 
Edition. Van Voorst, 1869. 
The appearance of a second edition is a sufficient indication that Dr. Attfield’s work 
has attained success. It is indeed a most useful manual. It is a necessary companion 
to every student following the system of practical instruction at the Society’s laboratory; 
it is also the best possible guide to the Pharmaceutical pupil who cannot indulge in 
laboratory tuition; and it is almost the only book from which the medical student can 
work up the pharmacopoeial chemistry required at his examinations. It would even be 
a useful text-book to the learner of pure chemistry, if its “ official ” character did not in 
that case prove a useless complication. Dr. Attfield’s experience as a teacher, first as 
Demonstrator of Chemistry at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and afterwards as Director 
of the Laboratory at Bloomsbury Square, has rendered him thoroughly familiar with 
the requirements of medical and pharmaceutical students; and in writing the present 
manual, he has kept these wants primarily in view. The result is certainly successful. 
By a series of well-contrived simple experiments, the reader is gradually led to under¬ 
stand the rationale of all the chemical processes included in the ordinary curriculum of 
pharmaceutical chemistry. All the essential points which can be required in an exami¬ 
nation are thus forcibly impressed on the mind, in a form in which they can be remem¬ 
bered and repeated, while the technicalities and difficulties of the subject are, as far as 
possible, excluded. If we could find any fault with this mode of treatment, it would be 
that the student is apt to leave the book with too large a notion of what he has learnt, 
and too small a conception of what there is yet to acquire. It appears to us that the 
title of the book may also favour such a result. ‘ Chemistry : General, Medical, and 
Pharmaceutical,’ is a very comprehensive heading. Dr. Attfield can hardly intend his 
readers to assume that the work in question includes all the chemistry that a well- 
educated medical practitioner or a pharmaceutical chemist requires to know. 
The plan upon which Dr. Attfield has constructed his manual is original, and con¬ 
sidering how many chemical text-books are written upon the model of their predecessoas, 
this is of itself a merit. 
Commencing with the description of a few simple experiments on the general proper¬ 
ties of the most common non-metallic elements, the author makes his readers acquainted 
with the first facts of chemistry, and at the same time gives them a notion of manipu¬ 
lation. Then follow a few chapters on the elements, chemical force, notation, formulae, 
equations, atomic weight,—in fact, the general principles of chemical philosophy. In 
this part, the latest views upon the subject are most clearly and succinctly laid down, 
with scarcely a reference to the older and now exploded notions. 
The next section treats of the common metallic elements, their official preparations 
and tests. Here, under each metal, the student is familiarized with all he has to learn 
by a set of “reactions,” wffiich are divided into two classes, those having a synthetical 
and those having an analytical interest. By a reaction of the first class, some pharma- 
copceial compound is produced, the decomposition occurring being then explained, 
together with any facts of interest. By the second class of reactions the student is 
