884 
EDITORIAL. 
is  worth  calling  attention  to,  in  view  of  lessening  the  labor  of  editing  the 
Proceedings.  It  is  that  members  should  be  more  careful  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  their  manuscripts,  both  as  regards  the  handwriting  and  the  spelling 
of  technical  or  scientific  words,  and  especially  the  names  of  plants,  sub- 
stances, and  authors.  No  words  should  be  left  abbreviated  unless  intend- 
ed to  be  so  printed.  As  it  is  impossible  to  afford  the  authors  of  reports 
and  papers,  in  many  instances,  an  opportunity  to  see  a  proof,  it  is  due  to 
themselves  that  they  present  plainly  written  documents.  "We  also  agree 
with  the  committee  that  greater  attention  to  brevity  in  composition  is  desir- 
able, so  as  to  prevent  the  unnecssary  extension  of  the   "  Proceedings." 
Catalogue  of  the  Library  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy. — 
It  is  due  to  the  chairman  of  the  Library  Committee,  as  well  as  to  the  editor 
of  this  Journal,  to  state  that  the  Catalogue  published  in  our  last  issue 
was,  owing  to  a  misunderstanding  as  to  who  should  read  the  proof,  carried 
through  the  press  without  correction  by  either  member  of  the  committee, 
which  will  account  for  a  number  of  typographical  and  other  errors  to  be 
found  in  it,  much  to  their  regret. 
Catawba  Brandy. — Our  readers  will  observe  at  page  363,  a  paper  on 
the  mode  of  manufacturing  the  best  American  Brandy,  as  practised  by 
Zimmerman  &  Co.,  of  Cincinnati,  in  a  communication  to  the  Maryland 
College  of  Pharmacy.  From  a  conversation  with  the  author,  we  are  in- 
duced to  believe  this  Brandy  stands  deservedly  high  for  medicinal  pur- 
poses, being  prepared  from  the  grape  by  fermentation  and  distillation. 
The  American  Dispensatory.    By  John  King,  M.  D.,  &c.    Fifth  Edition. 
Cincinnati,  1859. 
Our  last  issue  contained  a  few  general  remarks  on  this  book,  and  since 
then,  at  some  sacrifice  of  time,  we  have  glanced  over  its  pages  sufficiently 
to  get  an  idea  of  its  contents.  The  present  title,  which  is  the  third,  is  the 
same  as  that  of  Coxe's  Dispensatory,  which,  for  thirty  years,  was  the  chief 
reliance  of  American  apothecaries,  until  displaced  by  the  work  of  "Wood 
&  Bache.  The  author  claims  for  the  sect  he  represents  the  merit  of  hav- 
ing developed  the  medical  qualities  of  a  large  portion  of  the  American 
Materia  Medica,  many  of  which  have  been  in  the  officinal  list  of  the  U.  S. 
Pharmacopoeia  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  were  described  and  figured  pre- 
viouslyby  Bigelow  &  Barton. 
Before  noticing  the  work  itself,  "  the  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of 
Pharmacy"  feels  bound  to  express  his  regret  that  Dr.  King,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  sore  feeling  towards  the  authors  of  the  United  States  Dispensa- 
tory, should  so  far  forget  the  claims  of  justice  and  truth,  as  to  have  penned 
the  last  sentence  of  the  first  paragraph  at  page  xii.  of  his  Preface,  a  sen- 
tence, which,  however  ingeniously  worded,  is  too  transparent  to  conceal  the 
motive  which  prompted  its  expression. 
