^MMchifm™*}      Reviews  and  Bibliographical  Notices.  145 
"a  treatise  concerning  drugs,"  or  in  that  of  Samuel  Johnson  (1755), 
"  an  equivalent  of  pharmacy  or  pharmaceutics,"  is  still  frequently 
met  with  in  our  own  time.  Briefly  stated,  pharmacology  tries  to 
discover  and  explain  all  of  the  more  obvious  functional,  and  the  less 
noticeable  chemical  and  physical  changes  that  occur  in  a  living 
thing  that  has  absorbed  a  substance  capable  of  producing  such 
changes,  and  it  is  also  its  province  to  learn  the  fate  of  the  substance 
thus  incorporated.  It  is  not,  therefore,  an  applied  science  like  thera- 
peutics; it  is  one  of  the  biological  sciences,  using  that  term  in  its 
widest  sense. 
Now  what  does  this  revival  of  an  old  word  mean  ?  One  of  the 
most  eminent  investigators  in  this  field,  Professor  Schmiedeberg,  of 
Strassburg,  has  defined  pharmacology  as  "  The  study  of  the  changes 
brought  about  in  living  organisms  by  chemically  acting  substances 
(with  the  exception  of  foods),  whether  used  for  therapeutic  purposes 
or  not."1  It  is  to  be  noted  that  these  changes  induced  in  the  body 
are  not  merely  such  as  can  be  expressed  in  the  terms  of  an  equation, 
but  include  those  varied  molecular  processes  which  lie  in  that  ever- 
widening  borderland  between  physics  and  chemistry,  where  hide  the 
secrets  of  vital  activity. 
Like  its  sister  sciences,  physiology,  physiological  chemistry  and 
pathology,  it  is  making  great  progress  along  certain  physical  and 
chemical  lines,  which  is  pioneer  work  of  a  necessary  kind  toward 
an  explanation  of  vital  processes. 
Yours  faithfully, 
John  J.  Abel. 
Baltimore,  Md.,  February  r,  1904. 
[To  be  continued.^ 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
Elementary  Dispensing  Practice,  for  Students  of  Pharmacy 
and  Medicine.  By  Joseph  Ince,  F.C.S.,  F.L.S.,  F.R.M.S.,  Pharma- 
ceutical Chemist,  Associate  of  King's  College,  London,  late  Lecturer 
in  Pharmacy  to  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain,  for- 
merly Member  of  Council  and  Examiner.  Published  at  the  offices 
of  the  Ihe  Chemist  and  Druggist,  42  Cannon  Street,  London  E.  C, 
1903.    Price,  3*.  6d.,  net. 
1  Schmiedeberg,  "  Grundriss  d.  Arzneimittellehre."    II.  Aufl.,  s.  1. 
