678 
REVIEWS. 
pharmnceutist, for so large an amount of space was devoted to discussing the effects of 
drugs on man and the lower animals (a subject which the druggist is not called to study) 
that it became both unwieldy and costly. 
Yet a comprehensive work descriptive of all the drugs in which the pharmaceutist 
has to deal is very essential. Students at the present day are too apt to regard with 
indifference as objects of study those drugs which are not included in the pharmacopoeia, 
forgetting that the well-educated pharmaceutist ought to be thoroughly conversant with 
the history of every pharmaceutical substance found in commerce, and that the term 
officinal has by no means the limited signification sometimes imposed upon it, but that 
it properly belongs to those plants which furnish any product to the druggist’s shop. 
We have been led to these remarks in considering the very excellent and comprehen¬ 
sive works on Materia Medica which are at the disposal of the German student. Of 
these we have selected four whose titles are placed at the head of this article, but it 
would have been easy to mention several others emanating from authors scarcely less 
distinguished than those whose names appear in connexion w'ith the works in question. 
Though written with the same object,—that of furnishing the druggist with a history of 
the different substances in which he trades, these works an by no means similar in 
style and form, "hat of the late Professor Berg departing the most widely from the 
customary arrangement. 
The plan Dr. Berg has adopted is an analytical method carried out to its extreme 
length, and often and necessarily made to depend on characters that are doubtful, or 
very difficult of observation. In proof of this, let any one turn to the chapter on 
sarsaparilla and observe the manner in which differential microscopic characters are 
proposed for the various sorts of that drug. We will not weary our readers by following 
our author through his laborious but unprofitable details. Suffice it to say that the 
student having discovered that sarsaparilla must be placed among the true roots and 
rhizomes ivith roots, and that it is not a rootless rhizome, or a tuber, or a bulb, or a bulbil, 
or a bud, has next to trace it to the division of monocotyledonous roots, among which it 
falls into its place as having bark compact, amylaceous, or horny. This is only to prove 
that the root is sarsaparilla. The characters derived from the form of the cells of the 
nucleus sheath proposed by Schleiden years ago, are here amplified to the extent of 
being made to offer distinctive characters for all the eleven varieties of sarsaparilla with 
which Dr. Berg was acquainted. We need hardly say that in our opinion these alleged 
distinctive characters have practically no real existence, though the author may doubtless 
have possessed single specimens in which he observed them. 
The analytical method adopted by Dr. Berg leads to some strange grouping. Thus 
Colchicum Seeds, Nux Vomica, and Coffee, are arranged together, because they are seeds 
having a horny albumen. What student, what druggist, would think for one moment 
of endeavouring to ascertain that nux vomica was nux vomica, by means of Dr. Berg’s 
elaborate and ingenious tabular analysis of seeds, parts of seeds, and spores ? But, 
however unpractically arranged Dr. Berg’s v/ork may appear to the English reader, it is 
hardly possible to say too much in praise of the accurate and laborious study of which 
it gives evidence. Nor is this work the only proof we have of Dr. Berg’s services in the 
field of pharmacological research. The beautiful series of illustrations of medicinal 
plants published in conjunction with Mr. C. F. Schmidt of Berlin, and the Anatomical 
Atlas of Drugs recently noticed in the pages of this Journal, by Mr. Brady, establish 
claims to our grateful remembrance of the late professor. 
The natural arrangement adopted in Professor Wiggers’ comprehensive and well- 
digested treatise is in accordance with that usually followed in this country. One 
section is devoted to Materia Medica derived from the animal kingdom. 
Although not classified in botanical order. Professor Henkel’s Handbook is of a far 
more practical character than that of Dr. Berg. Taking exception in some judicious 
observations in his preface to the unnecessary minuteness with which some recent phar¬ 
maceutical writers have described microscopic characters of no practical importance. 
Professor Henkel remarks that although the apothecary must be fully aufait with the 
use of the microscope, so as to be able to examine with it any substance that may come 
under his notice, it is his (Professor H.’s) opinion that anatomical characters are of value 
to the pharmaceutist only in so far as they afford means of determining the genuineness 
and good quality of any drug in which they can be observed. Microscopical examina¬ 
tion, he thiuks, is of practical value as supporting and confirming pharmacological 
