380 
EDITORIAL. 
of  subjects  portioned  out  to  Committees  for  investigation.  The  gentlemen 
who  voluntarily  undertook  the  labor  of  research,  will  doubtless  feel  an 
honorable  desire  to  accomplish  their  several  investigations  in  good  time,  so 
as  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  so  humiliating  a  report  as  is  exhibited  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Medical  Association  at  Nashville,  in  May  last,  wherein 
three-fourths  of  the  reports  were  either  not  received,  or  the  Committee  asked 
for  more  time.  The  members  and  others  who  may  not  have  received  a  copy 
of  the  Proceedings,  will  find  a  list  of  those  Committees  and  their  subjects 
in  the  November  number  of  this  Journal  for  1856. 
The  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  are  taking  measures  to  accommo- 
date the  Association  in  their  Hall,  where  there  will  be  ample  room  for  the 
display  of  any  specimens  or  other  objects  of  interest  the  members  and  new 
comers  may  bring.  It  is  particularly  desirable  that  every  gentlemen  pro- 
posing to  attend,  should,  before  leaving  home,  ask  himself  if  there  is  any- 
thing that  he  can  contribute  to  the  interest  of  the  meeting;  either  in  the 
form  of  a  paper  on  any  subject  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  or  of  specimens 
of  pharmaceutical  preparations,  rare  drugs,  etc.  In  Cincinnati,  in  Balti- 
more, in  Detroit,  in  Boston,  in  New  York,  in  New  Orleans  and  Richmond, 
there  are  doubtless  preparations  known  only  in  those  places,  and  which 
are  there  highly  esteemed,  and  which  the  pharmaceutists  of  those  places 
would  gladly  see  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.  Let  the  gentlemen  from  those 
places  bring  specimens  of  them  to  the  meeting;  and  let  all  see  them  and 
compare  them  ;  and  if  it  should  be  decided  to  appoint  a  committee  in 
reference  to  the  next  revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  in  1860,  this  committee 
will  properly  take  them  in  hand  and  report  on  them  next  year. 
From  accidental  causes  Philadelphia  has  heretofore  had  a  prevailing  in- 
fluence in  the  construction  and  remodeling  of  our  National  Medical  Codex, 
and  by  some  the  work  has  been  thought  too  local  in  its  character.  If  this 
has  been  the  case,  it  has  not  been  by  design,  and  the  proper  way  to  remedy 
it  is,  for  the  physicians  and  pharmaceutists  of  all  sections  to  do  their  share 
of  the  preparatory  labor,  that  the  revising  committee,  when  appointed  at 
Washington  in  1860,  will  know  what  the  profession  needs. 
In  concluding,  we  would  suggest  to  the  many  pharmaceutists  and  drug- 
gists who  come  to  this  city  and  New  York  from  the  South  and  West  on 
business,  that  they  keep  in  view  the  time  of  the  meeting  of  the  Associa- 
tion (Sept.  8th),  and  arrange  their  plans  so  as  to  be  in  attendance. 
The  Plant,  an  illustration  of  the  Organic  Life  of  the  Animal.  By  Harland 
Coultas,  author  of  "  the  Principles  of  Botany  as  exemplified  in  the 
Cryptogamia,  etc."  Philadelphia.  Perry  &  Errety,  publishers.  1855, 
Pp.  180,  12mo. 
The  object  of  the  author  in  the  publication  of  this  volume  appears  to  be 
to  claim  more  consideration  for  Botany  as  a  branch  of  scientific  education, 
but  more  especially  of  medical  education,  as  he  believes  the  great  advance 
