Am.  jour^phann.|  Commeuts  ou  Mageudte's  Formulary.  229 
If  the  author  had  looked  ahead  one  hundred  years  he  might  have 
been  somewhat  depressed.  Such  simultaneous  discoveries  to-day 
would  probably  result  in  patent  right  litigations. 
Lupuline  is  credited  to  several  investigators  for  knowledge  con- 
cerning its  existence  in  hops.  Among  these  is  the  only  American 
mentioned  in  the  book:  M.  Ives,  of  New  York. 
Brucine  was  first  isolated  by  Pelletier  and  Caventou  from  false 
Angustura  bark,  but  Pelletier  later  discovered  it  in  nux  vomica  in 
association  with  strychnine.  It  is  stated  to  be  an  "organic  salifiable 
base."  Its  properties  are  described  as  being  those  of  strychnine  in  a 
milder  degree  and  the  statement  occurs : 
"It  is  for  experience  to  decide  whether  this  new  substance  should 
be  preserved  as  a  medicine  or  rejected." 
In  the  posological  table  under  atropine,  delpkinine,  daturine, 
hyoscyamine,  narcotine,  picrotoxine  and  solanine  it  is  stated  that  the 
dose  had  not  yet  been  determined. 
Credit  for  appendix  number  one  is  given  to  "Snyder's  Examina- 
tions." This  portion  of  the  book  comprises  about  fifty  pages  and 
contains  methods  for  preparing  the  following  classes  of  compounds: 
Acids,  alkalies  and  their  salts,  earths  and  their  salts,  metals  and  their 
salts,  vegetable  drugs  and  their  preservation,  gum  resins,  expressed 
oils,  distilled  oils,  distilled  waters,  infusions,  mucilages,  decoctions, 
extracts,  mixtures,  spirits,  tinctures,  wines,  vinegars,  honeys,  syrups, 
confections,  powders,  pills,  animal  drugs,  preparations  of  ether, 
plasters,  cerates,  ointments,  liniments  and  cataplasma." 
This  is  really  a  condensed  kind  of  pharmacopoeia  in  which  formu- 
las and  brief  methods  are  given  for  preparing  several  hundred  medic- 
inal preparations.  This  portion  of  the  book  concludes  with  a  table 
of  strengths  of  preparations  of  opium,  antimony,  arsenic  and  mer- 
cury. 
Appendix  number  two  concerns  itself  with  a  twenty-page  de- 
scription of  poisons  of  various  kinds  and  their  antidotes.  Tests  are 
given  under  some  of  the  metallic  poisons  for  their  detection.  Some 
of  these  are  similar  to  those  described  in  works  on  toxicology  of  to- 
day. Under  vegetable  poisons  (alkaloids)  the  translator,  who  is 
responsible  for  the  appendices,  says : 
"We  are  possessed  of  no  tests  by  which  we  can  distinguish  poisons 
of  this  class  and  can  only  conjecture  they  have  been  taken  by  their 
taste  or  smell,  and  the  symptoms." 
