A  Symposium. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(.       April,  1904. 
indicates  the  study  of  drugs  before  the  modern  experimental  methods 
were  introduced,  and  may  still  be  used  to  include  knowledge  of  the 
type  then  extant,  such  as  the  origin  and  chemical  nature  of  drugs, 
their  more  striking  effects  and  their  method  of  preparation  and 
dosage.  Much  of  this  knowledge  is,  however,  now  denoted  under 
Pharmacognosy,  and,  in  fact,  the  old  term  Materia  Medica  may  be 
regarded  as  becoming  superfluous,  that  side  of  it  which  looked 
towards  the  chemical  side  being  known  as  pharmacognosy,  while 
the  effects  on  living  matter,  which  were  in  later  years  included  under 
Materia  Medica,  may  now  be  placed  under  Pharmacology. 
There  is,  as  you  say,  much  confusion  in  regard  to  the  use  of  the 
terms.  I  think  that  in  the  history  of  the  word,  pharmacology  was 
first  used  in  the  same  sense  as  pharmacognosy  at  present.  Pharma- 
cognosy is,  I  fancy,  a  comparatively  recent  term. 
If  your  symposium  tends  to  define  the  meaning  of  these  terms,  it 
will  not  have  been  in  vain ;  but  I  suppose  nothing  less  than  the  fiat 
of  an  academy  would  suffice  to  bring  order  into  the  present  confusion. 
Yours  sincerely, 
Arthur  R.  Cushny. 
University  of  Michigan,  February  6,  1904. 
My  dear  Professdr  Kraemer : 
The  composite  nature  of  our  language  often  accounts  for  what 
seems  to  be  flagrant  irregularities  in  the  meanings  assigned  to  words. 
As  a  consequence  it  is  impossible  for  many  English  words,  such  as 
are  constructed  out  of  one  or  more  foreign  equivalents,  each  pos- 
sessing several  shades  of  meaning,  to  dispossess  themselves  of  their 
original  genetic  dualism  or  polyism.  Of  course,  there  are  many 
Latin  and  Greek  words  that  carry  only  a  single  thought  or  concep- 
tion, and  correctly  preserve  this  unicism  when  transferred,  somewhat 
changed,  as  a  correlative  in  English.  Thus  when  the  Latins  wished 
to  convey  the  simple  idea  of  wood,  the  connection,  as  sometimes 
in  English;  alone  determined  which  specific  word  should  be  em- 
ployed— lignum ,  matefia,  silva,  nemus,  lucus,  saltus — as  each  was 
accepted  to  be  used  differently  and  under  no  condition  interchange- 
ably. There  are,  however,  so  many  of  our  foreign  derivatives 
possessing  a  dual  significance  that,  as  a  people,  we  are  not  slow  in 
accepting  such  possibilities,  or  better  advantages,  wherever  they 
happen  to  occur.    Even  in  translations,  irrespective  of  source,  we 
