Am  Jour.  Fharnj. 
April,-1894. 
Reviews. 
207 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
The  Dispensatory  of  the  United  States  of  America.  By  Dr.  Geo.  B.  Wood 
and  Dr.  Franklin  Bache.  Seventeenth  Edition.  By  H.  C.  Wood,  M.D.,  LD.D., 
Professor  of  Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics,  etc.,  in  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania ;  Joseph  P.  Remington,  Ph.M.,  F.C.S.,  Professor  of  Theory  and  Prac- 
tice of  Pharmacy  in  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  and  Samuel  P. 
Sadtler,  Ph.D.,  F.C.S.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy.    Philadelphia  :    J.  B.  Lippincott  Company.    1894.    Pp.  1930. 
After  the  lapse  of  but  five  years,  a  new  edition  of  the  United  States  Dispen- 
satory has  been  called  for,  and  that  demand  met  by  the  present  volume,  which 
has  not  only  been  revised,  but  largely  rewritten.  The  necessity  for  this  has 
in  part  arisen  from  the  sweeping  changes  in  the  seventh  revision  of  the  U.  S. 
Pharmacopoeia,  as  well  as  from  the  advent  of  the  numerous  synthetical 
remedies. 
One  of  the  notable  additions  to  this  edition  is  an  Index  of  Diseases.  The 
value  of  such  an  index  is  apparent  to  the  physician,  who  only  has  as  his  sub- 
ject the  name  of  the  disease,  and  who  must,  therefore,  consult  the  titles  from 
that  standpoint. 
After  a  careful  perusal  of  many  of  the  titles,  the  verdict  naturally  is  that 
the  book  is  fully  abreast  with  the  times.  All  of  the  changes  in  the  new  Phar- 
macopoeia are  introduced  and  commented  upon.  In  the  matter  of  chemical 
nomenclature  alone,  the  improvements  are  numerous  ;  the  one  requiring  that 
the  basylous  or  metallic  component  of  a  compound  shall  be  placed  first,  being 
an  important  one. 
In  botanical  nomenclature,  the  authors  have  refrained  from  too  radical 
changes,  deeming  it  important  not  to  make  useless  alterations  at  the  risk  of 
confusion. 
In  every  department  the  most  recent  advances  have  been  chronicled  ;  as  an 
illustration  of  this,  it  may  be  stated,  that  the  services  of  Dr.  H.  H.  Rusby  were 
obtained  to  furnish,  for  the  article  on  Cinchona,  his  extensive  researches  made 
on  the  plant  in  South  America  and  on  the  commercial  product  in  the  trade 
centres  of  London. 
A  special  feature  of  the  United  States  Dispensatory,  which  has  been  ampli- 
fied in  this  edition,  is  the  description  devoted  to  groups  or  classes  of  com- 
pounds, by  which  the  relations  of  different  members  of  a  group  are  shown. 
For  instance,  the  carbohydrates  have  been  classified  according  to  the  latest 
researches  of  Bmil  Fischer.  By  this  means  one  is  able  to  see  at  a  glance  the 
relations  existing  between  the  sugars,  starches  and  gums,  as  well  as  that  among 
the  sugars  themselves.  The  same  remarks  apply  to  the  fixed  and  volatile  oils, 
resins  and  a  number  of  other  classes. 
The  industrial  chemistry  of  the  subjects  on  which  it  has  a  bearing  has  been 
well  written  and  brought  fully  up  to  date,  and  in  all  the  articles  where  statistics 
are  possible  the  latest  obtainable  have  been  inserted.  All  the  recent  investiga- 
tions in  plant  chemistry  have  been  noticed,  and  the  results  inserted  up  to  the 
present  year.  Part  II  contains,  in  Section  1,  the  "National  Formulary  of  Un- 
official Preparations,"  and  in  Section  2,  "Drugs  and  Medicines  not  Official." 
This  latter  now  embraces  more  than  one  thousand  titles,  an  increase  of  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  over  the  previous  edition.     It  is  here  that  most  of  the  new 
