94 
Reviews,  etc. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      Feb.,  1881. 
incur  in  seeking  to  get  their  medicines  at  the  cheapest  phice,  and  by  sliow- 
ing  the  same  consideration,  justice  and  fair  play  to  the  faitliful  apothecary 
that  he  has  a  right  to  expect  from  him. 
The  Orthogbaphy  of  the  Metric  Units. — Professor  Remington's 
paper,  published  last  month,  elicited  a  rejoinder  which  will  be  found  on  p.  57, 
from  Prof.  Oldberg,  after  reading  a  sej^arate  copy  of  the  former  article  and 
before  he  had  seen  our  editorial  remarks  last  month  ;  his  expressed  views  are 
similar  to  our  own,  but  he  complements  the  facts  stated  before,  and  it  is 
now  apparent  that  in  no  language  of  Continental  Europe  has  the  French 
method  of  spelling  the  words  designating  the  various  metric  units  been 
adopted.  And  since,  in  the  scientitic  literature  of  Great  Britain,  the 
orthography  proposed  by  the  American  Metric  Bureau  has  been  adopted 
by  not  a  few,  we  may  safely  leave  it  to  time  to  convert  those  who,  in  Eng- 
lish, adhere  to  the  French  spelling,  but  not  to  the  French  pronunciation. 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
Year-book  of  Pharmacij^  iv'dJt  the  Tramaetiom  of  the  British  Pharmaceu- 
tical Conference  at  the  Seventeenth  Annual  Meeting^  held  in  Swansea, 
August,  1880.    London :  .1.  A.  Churchill.    8vo,  pp.  605. 
This  handsome  volume  contains  as  usual,  in  the  first  part,  abstracts  of 
paxiers  relating  to  pharmacy,  materia  medica  and  chemistry,  which,  during 
the  year  ending  .Tune  80th,  have  been  contributed  to  the  journals  of  Great 
Britain  and  other  countries.  The  second  part  contains  the  minutes,  papers 
read  and  the  discussions  at  the  Swansea  meeting,  of  which  an  account  will 
be  found  in  our  October  number.  This,  like  the  preceding  volumes  issued 
by  the  Conference,  is  of  intrinsic  and  lasting  value  to  pharmacists. 
A  cornpeadiurii  of  Modern  Pharmacij  and  Druggists^  Formulary.  Bv 
Walter  B.  Kilner,  Pharmaceutist.    8pringtield,  111.    Pp.  478. 
We  do  not  believe  that  the  title  chosen  for  this  work  is  a  correct  one. 
The  book  is  not  a  "compendium  of  modern  pharmacy,"  but  simj^ly  a 
"formulary,"  containing  formulas  for  many  pharmacopoeial,  so-called 
elegant  and  other  prexjarations,  many  of  which  will  be  found  valuable  for 
X^harmacists  generally. 
According  to  the  i^reface,  the  work  professes  to  be  mainly  a  compilation 
from  numerous  jDublications,  yet  credit  is  but  rarely  given  to  the  authors  of 
the  formulas  and  other  information  selected.  We  trust  that  in  admitting 
chapter  xiv,  "Physicians'  prescriptions,"  the  author  did  not  intend  to 
advocate  counter-i^rescribing  in  such  slight  (?)  ailments  as  gonorrhoea, 
vomiting  in  pregnancy,  leucorrhoea,  dropsy,  epilepsy,  cancer,  phthisis,  etc. 
With  the  exception  of  three  or  four  prescriptions,  which  are  credited  to 
Kilner,  we  suppose,  the  author  who,  as  the  title  page  informs  us,  is  not  an 
M.D.,  but  a  pharmaceutist — the  authors  of  the  prescriptions  are  not  men- 
tioned. We  are  also  decidedly  opposed  to  the  sophistications  recommended 
