Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  1 
January,  1914.  j 
Book  Reviews 
43 
the  Pharmaceutical  Institute  of  the  University  of  Berlin  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  H.  Thorns,  the  Director. 
It  also  gives  evidence  that  the  German  pharmacist,  acting 
through  this  pharmaceutical  institute,  is  alive  to  the  need  of  pro- 
tecting the  medical  profession  and  the  public  against  fraud,  secret 
medicines  and  mendacious  advertising.  Here,  in  our  own  country, 
the  pharmacists  have  been  so  busy  worrying  about  price  protection 
on  nostrums  and  telephone  rates  that  the  medical  profession  took  the 
bull  by  the  horns,  so  to  speak,  and  through  its  national  organization, 
the  American  Medical  Association,  organized  a  permanent  com- 
mittee, and  named  it  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and  Chemistry. 
What  this  council  has  done  since  its  organization  is  known  to  a1l 
progressive  pharmacists.  And  its  efforts  for  better  things  are  surely 
showing  results.  One  has  but  to  glance  over  the  proceedings  and 
reports  of  some  of  the  medical  and  pharmaceutical  societies  to  realize 
that  we  are  at  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  as  to  things  pertaining  to 
these  two  professions. 
The  investigations  of  the  laboratory  workers  of  this  German 
institution  covered  a  wide  field  in  the  domain  of  synthetic  chemistry, 
particularly  as  regards  the  output  of  the  dye  houses  of  that  country, 
specialties  of  all  kinds,  and  secret  remedies  and  nostrums  of  all 
kinds. 
Under  the  classification  of  Analgesics,  Antipyretics,  and  Anti- 
rheumatics, considerable  attention  is  given  to  such  chemicals  as 
Melubrin,  one  of  the  more  recent  antipyretics,  said  to  be  useful  in 
rheumatism  and  resembling  in  its  effects  the  salicylates,  chemically 
it  is  sodium-phenyl-dimethyl-pyrazolon-amido-methan-sulphonate ; 
Atophan,  said  to  be  useful  as  an  antirheumatic  in  so  far  as  it  aids  in 
the  elimination  of  uric  acid  and  chemically  known  as  phenyl-quinolin- 
carboxylic  acid ;  Novatophan  a  modification  of  atophan  and  taste- 
less while  the  latter  is  bitter  ;  Aspirin  Soluble  which  is  the  calcium 
salt  of  acetyl-salicylic  acid ;  Luminal,  a  sedative  and  hypnotic,  the 
chemical  name  of  which  is  phenylethylmalonylurea ;  Brophenin,  a 
combination  of  bromine  with  phenetidin  and  chemically  known  as 
bromisovalerylamino-acetate-p-phenetidin  ;  many  others  too  numer- 
ous to  mention  are  also  considered. 
Besides  giving  considerable  space  in  this  publication  to  the  in- 
vestigation of  products  (Kolonialprodukte)  from  the  German 
colonies,  both  as  to  their  chemistry  and  pharmacognosy,  there  also 
appears  an  exposure  of  some  of  the  nostrum  emmenagogues  found 
