Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
January,  1911.  J 
Book  Reviews. 
31 
Copies  of  the  Bulletin  may  be  had  on  application  to  the  Surgeon- 
General,  U.  S.  Public  Health  and  Marine-Hospital  Service,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C. 
The  Microscopical  Examination  of  Foods  and  Drugs.  A 
practical  introduction  to  the  methods  adopted  in  the  microscopical 
examination  of  foods  and  drugs,  in  the  entire,  crushed  and  pow- 
dered states.  By  Henry  George  Greenish,  F.I.C.,  F.L.S.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Pharmaceutics  to  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Brit- 
ain and  Director  of  the  Pharmacy  Research  Laboratory.  With  229 
illustrations.  Second  edition.  Philadelphia :  P.  Blakiston's  Son  & 
Co.,  1012  Walnut  St.,  1910.    $3.00  net. 
Professor  Greenish  is  well  known  as  an  author  of  several  stand- 
ard works  and  a  number  of  excellent  papers.  The  present  work  is 
a  laboratory  manual,  treating  of  the  general  technic  employed  in  the 
microscopic  examination  of  vegetable  drugs  and  food  products  and 
giving  a  fairly  large  number  of  typical  examples  under  each  of  the 
classes  considered.  There  are  some  15  sections,  in  which  are  con- 
sidered: starches,  hairs  and  textile  fibres,  spores  and  glands,  ergot, 
woods,  stems,  leaves,  flowers,  barks,  seeds,  fruits,  rhizomes,  roots, 
adulterants  of  powdered  foods  and  drugs  and  a  general  scheme  for 
the  examination  of  powders. 
While  the  work  is  especially  written  for  the  students  of  the 
School  of  Pharmacy  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain, 
it  could  be  well  adapted  by  teachers  in  other  schools  and  colleges  of 
pharmacy  in  their  work.  The  following  statement  from  the 
preface  is  deserving  the  attention  of  the  teachers  in  those 
schools  of  pharmacy  where  the  subject  of  pharmacognosy  is 
not  taught  as  a  means  to  a  practical  end.  "  Before  the  microscopical 
examination  of  vegetable  foods  and  drugs  can  be  intelligently  prac- 
tised, a  general  knowledge  of  botany  and  a  fairly  sound  and  thor- 
ough acquaintance  with  botanical  histology  are  absolutely  necessary. 
It  is  as  impossible  for  anyone  to  become  a  competent  microscopist 
without  such  preliminary  knowledge,  as  to  become  a  competent 
analytical  chemist  without  first  acquiring  a  sound  knowledge  of  the 
theory  and  principles  of  the  science  of  chemistry.  For  this  reason 
it  appears  to  me  that  the  training  now  given  in  the  School  of  Phar- 
macy of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  comprising  as  it  does,  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  principles  upon  which  the  sciences,  of  botany  and  chemis- 
