BOOKS RECEIVED, 
295 
apparatus. It was a new thing at that time for a wholesale druggist to have a drug- 
mill on the premises capable of producing all the vegetable and other powders on a 
large scale. Such work had been invariably done by a class of men called “ drug- 
grinders,” who were not particularly noted for the production of good and genuine pow¬ 
ders. Herring’s vegetable powders, such as rhubarb, jalap, bark, ipecacuanha, etc., while 
they were guaranteed to be genuine, were very different in appearance from any pow¬ 
ders previously supplied for use in medicine. They were fine, soft, impalpable, bright- 
looking powders, such as could not be produced with the pestle and mortar. This class 
of powders has subsequently replaced entirely the comparatively coarse and dull-looking 
powders previously used. To Thomas Herring was certainly due the introduction of a 
great and important reform in this department of pharmacy. Nor was this the only 
class of preparations for the improvement of which active measures were adopted at 
40, Aldersgate Street. The reform which had commenced there, and was first made appa¬ 
rent- in the vegetable powders, soon extended to other houses and other preparations, 
and the improvements thus progressively developed continued for many years. When, 
at a later date, pharmaceutical reformers united their efforts for the establishment of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, a great change had already been effected in the state of the 
drug trade, but this was accomplished by the exertions of isolated individuals ; it re¬ 
mained for more extensive and important reforms to be brought about through the com¬ 
bination of the leading houses, both wholesale and retail, which took place in 1841. 
Among the active and zealous promoters of this Association was Thomas Herring. He 
was elected a member of the first Council of the Pharmaceutical Society, and con¬ 
tinued to serve the Society in that capacity up to the time of his death. 
He was a regular attendant at the meetings, and took a warm interest in the pro¬ 
ceedings. In 1851 he was elected President of the Society; about this time he gave 
evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in favour of Mr. Bell’s Pharmacy 
Bill, showing the great abuses which had existed in the drug trade and the benefits 
which had resulted from the operations of the Pharmaceutical Society. The zeal he 
manifested in the cause to which he had devoted himself never flagged to the last, and 
the influence he exercised in the wholesale department of the trade was often felt to 
be of much value. 
As a man of business, Mr. Thomas Herring was exceedingly active and possessed 
considerable energy. For twenty-one years after the commencement of his career he 
continued to make his weekly business visits among the chemists and druggists of 
London, making what he called his town or London round on foot, and this, which was 
performed in the course of every week, involved the walking of upwards of 112 miles. 
For forty-one years he never omitted his annual Dublin and Belfast journey. On the 
23rd of last August, being the day after his return from his forty-first visit to Ireland, 
he was attacked with diarrhoea, which ended in his dissolution on the 27th of Septem¬ 
ber, when he had nearly completed his eightieth year. He was buried in the family 
vault at Weybridge church. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
Elements oe Mateeia Medica, containing- the Chemistry and Natural 
Histoey oe Dettgs, theie Effects, Doses, and Adelteeations ; with Ob- 
SEEVATIONS ON ALL THE NEW REMEDIES EECENTLY INTEODECED INTO PEAC- 
tice, and on the Peepaeations oe the Beitish Pharmacopoeia. By Dr. 
Willam Feazer, Lecturer on Materia Medica to the Carmichael School of Medi¬ 
cine, etc., etc. Second Edition. London: John Churchill and Sons, New Bur¬ 
lington Street. Dublin : Fannin and Co. 1864. 
Elements of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical. By William Allen Miller, 
M.D., LL.D., etc. Part II. Inorganic Chemistry. Third edition, with additions. 
London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green. 8vo, pp. 947. (Fromthe 
Publishers.) 
Skin Diseases : their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis, and Treatment. With 
a copious Formulary. By Tilbury Fox, M.D. Lond., etc. London: Robert Hard- 
wicke, 192, Piccadilly. 8vo, pp. 315. 1864. 
