96 
Reviews. 
( Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1    February,  1899. 
is  at  war  with  the  latter,  and  regards  the  matter  from  a  material  standpoint, 
and  says  if  the  germ  cells  overcome  the  cells  of  the  organism  the  latter  will 
succumb.  I  will,  therefore,  strengthen  my  cells.  I  will  drink  and  eat  and  live 
so  that  my  cells  shall  be  healthful,  and  in  the  fight  going  on  (consciously  or 
unconsciously)  will  be  the  victor.  The  other  says:  "All  the  actions  of  daily 
life,  our  down-sitting  and  uprising,  our  clothes,  our  dwellings,  the  newspapers, 
the  train,  the  cab,  the  theatre,  our  every  bite  and  sup,  our  work  and  our  play, 
all  are  fraught  with  the  most  hideous  perils,  our  doom  has  been  spoken,  and 
only  one  thing  can  save  us,  and  that  is  to  jump  into  a  bath  of  carbolic  acid  and 
stop  there.  For  deadly  germs  lie  in  ambush  on  every  hand,  and  we  all  know 
that  they  yield  to  no  power  but  that  of  disinfectants."  The  truth  lies  between 
the  two  extremes  ;  a  healthful  organism  is  less  likely  to  suffer  from  the 
attacks  of  germs,  but  a  sick  or  debilitated  organism  is  much  assisted  in  the 
warfare  by  not  only  a  strengthening  diet,  but  by  the  proper  use  of  disinfect- 
ants. It  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  factors  influence  disease,  and 
that  the  strength  and  tone  of  the  organism  at  the  time  of  attack  and  the  use  of 
disinfectants  are  but  two  of  these. 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
A  Text-Book  of  Volumetric  Analysis.  By  Henry  W.  Schimpf,  Ph.G., 
M.D.    New  York:  John  Wiley  &  Sons.    1898.    Pp.  522. 
The  present  volume  is  the  third  edition  of  this  book  ;  the  first  edition 
appeared  in  1894.  The  work  is  designed  for  the  use  of  pharmacists,  and,  espe- 
cially, as  a  text-book  for  students  in  pharmacy  ;  for  this  reason,  it  has  special 
reference  to  the  volumetric  processes  of  the  pharmacopoeia  of  the  United 
States. 
Some  parts  of  the  book  have  been  revised,  but  the  author  has  not  remedied  the 
many  minor  defects  which  we  consider  to  be  the  shortcomings  of  the  book.  This 
edition,  like  its  predecessors,  contains  a  useless  list  of  so-called  approximate 
atomic  weights,  the  members  of  which  compare  very  irregularly  with  those  of  the 
list  of  Meyer  and  Seubert,  given  on  the  same  page  (xxviii).  As  in  the  two  preced- 
ing editions,  the  author  still  extends  the  decimal  fractions  derived  from  his  ap- 
proximate molecular  weights,  only  to  the  third  or  fourth  place,  when  stating  the 
factors  for  1  c.c.  of  normal  volumetric  solutions  ;  while  in  the  case  of  the  factors 
for  decinormal  volumetric  solutions,  he  employs  the  numbers  derived  from  the 
exact  atomic  weights  of  Meyer  and  Seubert,  as  adopted  by  the  U.S. P.,  and 
extends  the  fractions  sufficiently  to  include  all  of  the  figures  in  the  pumbers 
representing  the  atomic  weights.  The  present  edition,  like  the  first  and  second, 
bears  a  blemish  which  was  borrowed  from  the  U.S. P.  ;  this  is  the  sanction  of  the 
author  to  use  the  * 4  rounded  off"  weights  of  materials  which  the  pharmaco- 
poeia of  this  country  directs  to  be  used  in  preparing  volumetric  solutions 
"when  a  delicate  balance  and  exact  weights  are  not  at  hand."  Since  these 
quantities  are  invariably  greater  than  those  needed,  the  absurdity  of  bettering 
the  matter  by  "  rounding  off  "  the  numbers  on  an  inaccurate  balance  is  very 
evident.  There  is  at  least  one  good  reason,  and  it  contains  a  commercial 
idea,  why  a  book  of  this  kind  should  be  free  from  such  inconsistencies  as  those 
referred  to  ;  it  is  this — a  teacher  does  not  relish  the  necessity  of  repeatedly 
explaining  these  incongruities  to  each  individual  student  as  the  latter  encoun- 
