423 
REVIEW. 
Note-Book oe Materia Medica, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics. By E. E. 
ScoRESBY-J ackson, M.D., F.E.S.E. Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh. 
The author states that this book “ is only a Note-Book, and its aim is to he suggestive 
rather than dogmatic.” In other words, he says, it “ will relieve the student from much 
of the mechanical labour of note-taking,” and “ whilst it supplies a good deal of useful 
information, it will suggest the necessity of a more complete investigation of the subject.” 
We think the purpose for which the purpose was thus designed has been very success¬ 
fully accomplished. The pharmaceutical student will find it a useful auxiliary in his 
studies; in fact, it supplies a want that has been much felt. Including under Materia 
Medica not only all the medicines ordered in the British Pharmacopoeia, but many others 
not mentioned in that work, that are in frequent use, it gives a brief but explicit and 
generally comprehensive account of each. These notices also comprise pharmacology, 
descriptions of the chemical changes which occur in the processes referred to, and as 
much of therapeutics as the pharmaceutical student requires. 
The following quotation will serve to indicate the way in which the subjects are 
generally treated:— 
Ferri Phosplias. Synonyms : Phosphate of Iron—Blue Phosphate of Iron—Phos¬ 
phate of Iron, 3FeO, POg, partially oxidated. 
Preparation. — Take of sulphate of iron, three ounces; phosphate of soda, two 
ounces and a half; acetate of soda, one ounce ; boiling distilled water, four pints. Dis¬ 
solve the sulpihate of iron in one half of the water, and the phosphate and acetate of soda 
in the remaining half. Mix the two solutions, and, after careful stirring, transfer the 
precipitate to a calico filter, and wash it with hot distilled water, till the filtrate ceases 
to give a precipitate with chloride of barium. Finally dry on porous bricks in a stove 
whose temperature does not exceed 100^. Preserve the dried salt in a stoppered bottle. 
Rationale. —The phosphate of iron being tribasic, three equivalents of sulphate of iron 
are required, from -which the sulphuric acid is to be removed by means of soda. But 
the phosphate of soda contains only two equivalents of soda, the third atom of base 
being constituted by water, therefore another atom of soda is required to saturate the 
third atom of sulphuric acid, which if left free would prove injurious; this is provided 
for by the acetate, whereby an equivalent of acetic acid is set free, which is not preju¬ 
dicial to the salt desired. Thus (2 Na0,110, POg) Na0,C,H.03 -f SFeOSOo = 
3Na0S03-f HO + C 4 H 3 O 3 + 3Fe0,P05. 
Characters. — A slate-blue amorp)hous powder, insoluble in water, soluble in hydro¬ 
chloric acid. The solution yields a precipitate ivith both the ferrocyanide and theferrid- 
cyanide of potassium, that afforded by the latter being the more abundant,^ and ivhen 
treated with tartaric acid and an excess of ammonia, and subsequently with the solution 
of ammonio-sulphate of magnesia, lets fall a crystalline precipitate? 
Purity Test. — If it is digested in hydrochloric acid with a lamina of pure copper, a 
dark deposit does not form on the metal? Preparation. — Syrupus. 
^ Showing-that it is chiefly a protosalt, but that it also contains a higher oxide, which 
s converted into perchloride by the hydrochloric acid. ^ Qf the ammonio-phosphate of 
magnesia. ^ Absence of arsenic. 
Dose. —Of the powder, three to ten grains, in powder, or pill, or dissolved in dilute 
phosphoric acid, sufficiently diluted ; of the syrup, from twenty minims to a drachm, 
well diluted, each drachm containing one grain of phosphate of iron, and about half a 
drachm of dilute phosphoric acid. 
Phosphate of iron has been recommended as a mild chalybeate, and is said to be 
useful in consequence of its combination with phosphoric acid, in cases of ancemia, 
chlorosis, etc., in conjunction with scrofula and rickets; in cases complicated with great 
nervous exhaustion and depression of spirits, and where there is a tendency to deposits 
of phosphates in the urine ; it has also been recommended in diabetes. Several phos¬ 
phates have been used in medicine, and a variety of syrups have been prepared, such as 
syrup of the phosphate of iron and lime, syrup of the phosphate of iron and ammonia, 
syrup of pyrophosphate of iron, syrup of superphosphate of iron, etc. Parrish’s com¬ 
pound syrup of phosphates contains, in a teaspoonful, two and a half gr.ains of phos¬ 
phate of lime, one grain of phosphate of iron, with parts of a grain of phosphates of 
soda and potash, in addition to free phosphoric and hydrochloric acids. This and the 
above syrups may be given in doses of from thirty drops to a teaspoonful. 
