Am.jour.Pharm.]  Btviews,  ctc.  —  Obituavv.  319 
June,  1881.      )  '  ^ 
Nostrums  in  their  Belations  to  the  Public  Health.   By  Prof.  Albert  B.  Pres- 
cott,  M.D.,  of  Ann  Arbor. 
An  excellent  essay,  demonstrating  the  evils  resulting  from  the  use  of 
secret  medicines,  and  the  proper  means  for  combatting  these  evils.  A 
reprint  from  the  "Physician  and  Surgeon,"  May,  1881. 
JPhenol^  or  Carbolic  Acid;  Qualitative  or  Quantitative  Tests.    By  E. 
Waller,  Ph.D.    New  York. 
After  a  review  of  the  various  methods  proposed,  the  author  describes  a 
modification  of  Landolt's  test  (this  journal,  1872,  p.  321,  418)  by  means  of 
bromine  water,  the  improvement  consisting  mainly  in  the  addition  of  a 
solution  of  alum  in  diluted  sulphuric  acid,  by  which  the  bromine  precipi- 
tate becomes  denser  and  separates  readily.  Reprinted  from  the  "  School  of 
Mines  Quarterly." 
The  following  pamphlets  have  been  received  : 
Br.  E.  Jenner^s  Discovery  of  Vaccination.    By  E.  L.  B.  Godfrey,  M.D., 
Camden,  N.  J. 
A  Statistical  Repart  of  252  Cases  of  Inebriety  Treated  at  the  Inebriates'' 
Home,  Fort  Hcmiilton,  L.  I.    By  Lewis  D.  Mason,  M.D. 
Eighth  Biennial  Report  of  Ihe  Illinois  Asylum  for  Feeble-minded  Children 
at  Bincoln.    8vo,  i^p.  70. 
Trance  and  Trancoidal  States  in  the  Lower  Animals.  By  George  M.  Beard, 
A.M.,  M.D,    New  York,  1881. 
OBITUARY. 
John  Abraham,  one  of  the  leading  pharmacists  of  Liverj^ool,  died 
there  last  February,  in  the  sixty-eighth  year  of  his  age.  He  served,  for 
several  years,  on  the  Pharmaceutical  Council,  and  was  several  times 
elected  President  of  the  Liverpool  Chemists'  Association  and  of  other 
pharmaceutical  bodies.  He  was  a  corresponding  member  of  the  Philadel- 
phia College  of  Pharmacy. 
Rudolph  Christian  Boettger,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  at  the 
Physical  Institute  in  Frank foit-on-the-Main,  died  there  April  29,  aged  75 
years.  He  studied  at  first  theology,  and  afterwards  chemistry,  and  then 
devoted  himself  chiefly  to  ai)i)lied  chemistry.  He  discovered  and  pub- 
lished the  process  for  preparing  gun  cotton,  after  Schoenbein  had  discov- 
ered it  without  making  the  process  known.  He  was  the  editor  of  the 
*'  Polytechnisches  Notizblatt,"  and  the  author  of  numerous,  mostly  short 
but  important,  papers  on  chemical  processes  and  assays  as  applied  to  the 
arts. 
