AMjun™,  w£M'}  Reviews  and  Bibliographical  Notices.  287 
to  provide  the  College  with  a  permanent  building;  assesses  nearly  $38,000  for 
what  the  College  will  gladly  do  gratuitously. 
The  annual  address  of  the  President  of  the  Alumni  Association  likewise 
possesses  a  lasting  value.  It  reviews  the  history  of  the  New  York  College  of 
Pharmacy  as  an  educational  institution,  and  discusses  briefly  the  past,  the  pre- 
sent and  the  future  of  the  pharmaceutical  profession  in  the  United  States.  We 
extract  from  it  the  following  statistical  information,  which  we  think  will  be 
interesting  to  our  readers  : 
In  Prussia,  the  government  considers  one  apothecary's  store  to  be  quite  suf- 
ficient for  7500  population,  while  throughout  our  whole  Union  the  average 
everywhere  is  about  one  to  eveiy  2500  souls,  a  proportion  which  appears  to 
prevail  without  much  regard  to  locality  or  circumstances  ;  thus,  with  about  one 
million  population  within  the  city  of  New  York,  we  have  over  400  apothecaries. 
In  the  whole  Union,  with  about  forty  millions,  we  have  a  little  less  than  13.000 
druggists  and  pharmacists,  and  we  find  that  the  more  restricted  the  range  of 
the  pursuit  the  greater  number  of  persons  are  engaged  in  it,  in  proportion  to 
the  population  ;  consequently  the  rewards  within  our  cities  for  the  pursuit  of 
one  of  our  most  responsible  professions,  requiring  extensive  education  as  well 
as  culture  and  close  application,  are  quite  inadequate. 
Gmelin-KrauVs  Handbuch  der  Chemie.  Anorganische  Chemie  in  drei  Banden. 
Sechste  umgearbeitete  Auflage.  Heidelberg:  Carl  Winter's  Universitats 
buchhandlung.  1871.. 
We  have  noticed  the  appearance  and  spoke  of  the  merits  of  this  new  edition 
in  our  January  number,  and  now  have  upon  our  table  the  third  and  fourth  num" 
bers  of  the  third  volume,  revised  by  Dr.  S.  M.  Jorgensen,  of  Copenhagen, 
which  contain  the  elements  thallium,  lead  and  part  of  iron. 
Formulas  for  some  Elixirs  and  Medicated  Wines,  adopted  by  the  Louisville 
Oollege  of  Pharmacy,  January  16'fo,  1872.  Chicago:  J.  J.  Spalding  &  Co., 
Printers.    1872.    8vo,  9  pages. 
These  formulas  were  reported  by  Professor  Diehl  at  the  request  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Unofficinal  Formulas  of  the  Louisville  College  of  Pharmacy.  Their 
adoption  by  the  College  named  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  calculated  to 
replace  by  "  home  made"  preparations  the  semi  nostrums  of  others.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  there  are  so  many  physicians,  even  in  the  larger  cities,  who — 
unthinkingly — rather  rely  on  the  assertions  of  distant  and  near  manufacturers 
than  upon  the  experience  and  knowledge  of  their  accomplished  pharmacists 
who,  honestly  and  without  claiming  a  proprietaryship,  impart  their  experience, 
and  freely  acknowledge  that  they  cannot  prepare — what  nobody  else  can  do — 
a  bitter  wine  of  iron,  or  an  elixir  of  quinia  containing  gr.  j  to  f^j,  which  do  not 
possess  a  bitter  taste.  Under  the  pretence  of  "elegant  pharmacy,"  innume- 
rable preparations  have  been  introduced  to  and  are  used  by  the  thoughtless  and 
unwary  physician.  Any  measure  calculated  to  correct  this  abuse  must  be  wel- 
comed by  the  conscientious  pharmacist.  Some  of  the  formulas  proposed  may, 
perhaps,  not  be  the  best  that  can  be  devised,  but  they  will  furnish  pleasant 
preparations  of  known  definite  strength,  and  as  such  should  be  preferred  by 
the  conscientious  physician  to  preparations  the  processes  for  which  are  kept 
secret. 
