April 12, i&73.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
809 
Stitt fiknmttfutical Journal. 
-♦- 
SATURDAY, APRIL 12 , 1873 . 
Communications for this Journal, and books for revieiv, etc. 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square, W.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London, W. Envelopes indorsed “Pharm. Journ.” 
DR. MACDONNELL ON DISINFECTANTS. 
On Saturday the 5th inst., Dr. Robert Macdon¬ 
nell, F.R.S., delivered "before the Dublin Royal 
Society an able and instructive lecture on “ Antisep¬ 
tics and Disinfectants.” There was a large attend¬ 
ance-many of the audience being public officers of 
health, in esse or in posse, anxious to be informed as 
to the most effective means of preventing such 
terrible epidemics as that of the small-pox, which ra¬ 
vaged the city in 1870-71. Dr. Macdonnell passed 
in review the various causes of epidemic disease, 
dividing them into a perceptible and a non-percep- 
tible class—the former being those which could be 
detected by any of the organs of special sense, the 
latter including such as were discoverable only by 
analysis. The next stage in his lecture was a rapid 
survey of the great controversy which has for some 
years been waged between M. Pasteur of Paris and 
the late Dr. F. A. Pouchet of Rouen. M. Pasteur, 
as our readers are aware, is a staunch adherent of 
Harvey’s doctrine, omne vivum ex ovo; while Dr. 
Pouchet is equally strenuous in maintaining the 
thesis of u spontaneous generation.' 5 This controversy, 
so important to the investigation of the genesis of 
epidemic disease, whether its source be animal or 
vegetable, found an impartial critic in Dr. Macdon¬ 
nell, who, though deprecating a premature summing- 
up, inclined on the whole to the view of Pasteur. 
Professor Tyndall’s mode of testing the existence 
of germs in a given atmospheric area was next 
exemplified and estimated—more favourably than 
we should be inclined to do ; and the lecturer con¬ 
cluded by a high tribute of praise to Mr. Joseph 
Lister, Professor of Surgery in the University of 
Edinburgh, not only for the antiseptic ligature which 
had superseded the traditional modes of arresting 
heemorrage, and such new devices as acupressure, but 
also for the application of the antiseptic treatment to 
tumours and exposed surfaces in the human subject 
generally. The discourse was in all respects worthy 
of the Dublin school; and taken in connexion with 
the lectures of Stokes, the Regius Professor of 
Medicine, and Dr. E. D. Mapother, Professor of 
Physiology and Public Hygiene, it affords ample 
proof of the vigour and intelligence with which the 
ubject of sanitary reform is being prosecuted in the 
Irish metropolis. We hope Dr. Macdonnell will 
be prevailed upon to make his lecture pubiici juris. 
ANNUAL DINNER. 
We are gratified to learn that there is already a very 
cordial response to the suggestion put forward last 
week in reference to the Annual Dinner at the 
Crystal Palace. We understand that a number of 
gentlemen have already expressed their willingness 
to act as stewards, and we hope next week to be able 
to publish a complete list, together with other par¬ 
ticulars. Meanwhile we would state that gentlemen 
who are desirous of having their names placed on this 
list should apply at once to Mr. Carteighe, 172, New 
Bond Street, or to Mr. Richard Bremridge, 17 
Bloomsbury Square, who are acting as joint honorary 
secretaries. 
NEW DICTIONARY OF MEDICO-SCIENTIFIC TERMS. 
Our readers will be happy to learn that a deside¬ 
ratum long felt by every student of the medical sci¬ 
ences,—tli at of a dictionary in which the terminology 
of these sciences is explained and illustrated,—will 
shortly be supplied. The New Sydenham Society 
has purchased the copyright of the well-known but ex¬ 
tremely inaccurate and imperfect work of Mayne, 
and is about to re-issue it, under competent editor¬ 
ship, in a new if not in an absolutely re-written form. 
The plan adopted will be, first, to give the etymology 
of the words met with in the literature of medicine 
and the cognate sciences ; next, to supply an intelli¬ 
gible and complete definition of the same, with an 
illustrative extract or extracts from the authors who 
employ them in a special or restricted sense ; third, 
to give the French and German equivalents of the 
English; and, lastly, to mark the quantity of the 
words, as a guide to the pronunciation. We hope 
that the work will be worthy of English medicine, 
and that the student will be able to find at home and 
in the vernacular what he has hitherto either done 
without or made shift to glean from such dictionaries 
as those of Littre and Robin, or the later editions of 
the ‘ Conversazions-Lexicon.’ The Society, very pro¬ 
perly as we think, invites the co-operation of the me¬ 
dical or scientific savant in suggesting, criticizing,.or 
otherwise contributing to the speedy and effective 
completion of its onerous undertaking. 
THE CHALLENGER EXPEDITION. 
One of the lions of the cruise is a new spe¬ 
cies of lobster, perfectly transparent. Besides ob¬ 
taining animals with eyes so fully developed that 
the body may be said to be an appendage to the eyes 
rather than the eyes to the body, the “ Challenger” 
has dredged up a new crustacean in which the body 
has cut itself clear of the eyes altogether; the animal 
being totally blind, and not even having the trace of 
