Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
November,  1910.  J 
Book  Reviews. 
539 
This  volume  of  312  -f-  VIII  octavo  pages  represents  a  compila- 
tion of  the  work  done  in  the  pharmaceutical  institute  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Berlin  during  the  "year  1909,  and,  with  the  six  preceding 
volumes,  constitutes  a  record  of  accomplishment  of  which  any  insti- 
tution might  well  be  proud. 
As  has  been  pointed  out  before  the  work  done  in  connection  with 
the  pharmaceutical  institute  of  the  University  of  Berlin  is  unique 
and  the  institution  is  not  alone  a  pharmaceutical  school  and  a  labora- 
tory for  original  research,  but,  to  a  lesser  extent  perhaps,  also  a 
central  station  for  the  control  of  new  remedies  and  proprietary 
medicines. 
From  a  practical  point  of  view  this  activity  is  by  no  means 
the  least  important  of  the  several  activities  of  the  institute  and,  in 
the  recently  published  report,  readily  surpasses  all  of  the  other  de- 
partments in  number  of  communications. 
It  may  be  well  to  add  that  this  particular  branch  of  the  activities 
of  the  institute  is  being  conducted  at  the  expense  of  the  German 
Society  of  Apothecaries  and  that  the  work  itself  has  much  in  common 
with  the  work  done  by  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and  Chemistry  of 
the  American  Medical  Association.  Indeed,  the  director  of  the 
Institute,  Prof.  H.  Thorns,  has  for  some  years  been  affiliated  with 
the  Council  as  a  corresponding  member  and  the  work  of  the  Berlin 
Institute  is  frequently  quoted  in  the  pages  of  the  Journal  of  the 
American  Medical  Association  and  has  been  of  practical  assistance 
in  the  detection  of  irregularities  in  connection  with  European 
specialties. 
While  the  reports  of  work  done  in  the  institute  at  Berlin  are 
frequently  mentioned  or  abstracted  in  this  Journal  as  well  as  in 
the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  it  is  perhaps  unfor- 
tunate that  the  contributions,  as  they  are  gathered  together  in  the 
volume  under  discussion,  are  not  more  readily  available  to  the 
average  pharmacist  in  this  country. 
As  an  illustration  of  the  varied  character  of  the  information  that 
is  supplied,  and  as  an  indication  of  the  nature  of  the  work  that  is 
being  done  by  the  men  who  are  officially  connected  with  the  phar- 
maceutical institute  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  it  may  suffice  to 
enumerate  the  contents  of  the  volume  before  us. 
In  addition  to  a  general  review  of  the  new  remedies  and  pro- 
prietary specialties  introduced  in  1909,  the  book  records  the  examina- 
tion of  30  new  remedies  and  proprietary  specialties  and  contains  in 
