176 
EDITORIAL.  PEREIRA'S  MATERIA  MEDICA. 
The  Elements  of  Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics.  By  Jonathan  Pereira, 
M.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  and  L.  S.  Third  American  Edition,  enlarged  and  im- 
proved by  the  Author.  Including  notes  of  most  of  the  medicinal  substances  in 
the  civilized  world,  and  forming  an  Encyclopedia  of  Materia  Medica. 
Edited  by  Joseph  Carson,  M.  D.,  Professor  of  Materia  Medica  and  Phar- 
macy in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  &c,  &c.  Vol.  II.  Philadelphia. 
Blanchard  &  Lea.  1854.  pp.  1226,  octavo. 
In  accordance  with  the  notice  in  our  last  number,  the  final  volume  of 
Pereira' s  Materia  Medica  has  been  published  and  is  now  ready  for  the  nu- 
merous class  of  readers,  who,  like  ourselves,  feel  interested  to  know  what 
improvements  the  work  has  undergone  in  evolving  from  the  scrutiny  of  a 
third  edition.    When  the  American  publishers  concluded  to  issue  the  first 
volume  separately  . at  the  close  of  1851,  they  expected  to  be  able  to  complete 
the  work  in  the  following  July  or  August,  but  owing  to  the  delay  incident 
to  the  very  thorough  revision  to  which  the  author  was  subjecting  the  work 
it  had  not  been  revised  beyond  the  article  Cinchona  (page  700  of  2nd  vol- 
ume,) at  the  time  of  his  lamented  death  in  January  1853.    As  soon  after 
that  event  as  circumstances  would  allow,  the  continuation  of  the  revision 
was  placed  in  the  hand  of  Doctors  Alfred  S.  Taylor  and  George  Owen  Rees, 
whose  concluding  prefatory  notice  is  dated  September  1853.    In  our  notice 
of  the  1st  volume  (Jan.  1852,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  94,1  it  was  stated  that  the  Ame- 
rican publishers  had  made  an  arrangement  with  Dr.  Pereira  to  revise  for  their 
press,  the  1st  volume  of  the  English  3d  edition  published  in  1849,  and  in 
furnishing  the  subsequent  sheets,  to  do  it  in  reference  to  the  American  edi- 
tion.   This  was  faithfully  attended  to  up  to  his  demise,  he  including  some 
articles  first  introduced  into  the  work  by  Prof.  Carson  in  preceding  edi- 
tions, yet  the  American  editor,  as  we  shall  see,  has  had  many  occasions  to 
add  notices  of  American  drugs  as  in  the  previous  editions.     It  is  im- 
possible in  the  largest  space  that  can  be  allotted  in  this  Journal  to  do  full 
justice  to  so  extensive  a  treatise  ;  nevertheless,  without  further  apology,  we 
will  endeavor  to  give  as  full  an  examination  of  its  new  features  as  possible. 
The  reader  is  aware  that  Dr.  Pereira' s  basis  of  classification  is  scientific 
and  not  alphabetical.  The  first  volume  is  a  treatise  on  the  chemistry  and 
therapeutics  of  mineral  drugs  and  medicines.  In  the  second  volume  the 
the  plants  and  animals  contributing  to  the  Materia  Medica  are  treated  of 
under  their  natural  arrangement,  commencing  with  the  algaceous  plants, 
and  continuing  through  the  medicinal  cryptogamise ;  then  commencing  with 
the  endogenous  phanerogamia  and  proceeding  through  these  and  the  more 
numerous  classes  of  the  exogense  from  Cycadacese  to  Ranunculacese  ;  thus 
reversing  the  usual  order  as  observed  in  Griffith  and  ^Lindley,  of  commenc- 
ing with  the  Ranunculous  plants  and  ending  with  the  Algaceous.  In  the 
animal  kingdom  the  same  arrangement  is  adhered  to — first  from  sponges  to 
thecrustaceae — among  invertebrata  :  and  from  fishes  to  Rodentia  in  the  verte- 
brate division. 
The  article  on  Carrageen  has  grown  from  one  to  more  than  three  pages. 
