334  Reviews  and  Bibliographical  Notices.  {AM^l^u' 
few  leaves  from  a  dispensatory  published  in  the  seventeenth  century.  De- 
signed as  a  guide  for  the  pharmaceutist,  druggist,  physician,  etc.  By  H.  V. 
Sweringen,  member  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  Phila- 
delphia: Lindsay  &  Blakistou,  1873.    8vo.    pp.  576. 
The  idea  of  writing  a  pharmaceutical  lexicon  was  a  good  and  praiseworthy 
one,  which  might  have  been  carried  out  in  various  ways,  so  as  to  impart  of  any- 
given  term  the  scientific  information  connected  with  it,  or  to  merely  explain 
the  meaning  of  it.  The  author  has  chosen  the  latter  course,  omitting  strictly 
scientific  information  almost  completely.  The  dictionary,  which  in  our  opinion 
was  quite  sufficient  for  one  book,  occupies  427  pages.  As  the  first  one  fourth 
part  of  the  title  indicates,  it  is  to  embrace  pharmacy  and  its  collateral  sciences  ; 
it  is  therefore  difficult  to  fix  a  proper  limit  for  the  work,  and  lo  draw  a  sharp 
liue  between  that  which  should  be  admitted  and  excluded.  In  this  endeavor 
the  author  has  not  been  as  successful  as  might  have  been  desired.  In  admit- 
ting, for  instance,  such  minerals  as  kaolin,  karpholite,  karphosiderite.  karsten- 
ite,  etc.,  their  relation  to  pharmacy  is  not  at  all  apparent,  and,  with  the  same 
propriety,  the  names  of  nearly  all  minerals  might  have  found  places  in  the  work. 
The  chemical  compounds  stand  in  a  similar  position  ;  when  we  meet  with  such 
terms  as  dibromo-coryamyrtin,  dichloroxyphenyl-sulphuric  acid,  phtalic  acid, 
phtalmid.  phycite,  etc..  we  might  as  well  expect  to  have  a  catalogue  of  all  the 
chemical  compounds  ever  discovered. 
The  difficulty  mentioned  above  is  also  apparent  in  another  direction.  Bo- 
tanical terms  which  are  frequently  used  in  describing  vegetable  drugs,  as  for 
instance  acaulous,  lanceolate,  perfoliate, "serrate,  etc.,  have  very  properly  found 
a  place;  but  why  equally  important  and  common  terms,  like  amplexicaul,  cor- 
date, dentate,  linear,  sheathing,  spatulate,  etc.,  have  been  omitted,  is  not  clear. 
The  arrangement  of  the  matter  is  alphabetical,  but  hardly  as  systematic  as 
might  have  been  expected.  Acids  are  found  arranged  under  their  descriptive 
names,  like  nitric,  malic,  maleic,  etc.,  and  partly  also  under  the  letter  A,  like 
acid,  nitric,  etc. ;  the  salts  are  partly  found  under  the  letters  of  their  acids, 
partly  under  that  of  their  bases;  so  is  the  description  or  rather  explanation  of 
the  officinal  substances  partly  m#with  under  the  Latin,  partly  under  the  Eng- 
lish name,  and  notices  of  one  and  the  same  substance,  like  opium,  are  found  in 
several  places.  Why  adulterated  opium  should  have  a  heading  under  A,  to  the 
exclusion  of  every  other  adulterated  article,  is  not  apparent. 
The  explanations  are  sometimes  quite  unsatisfactory,  Gum  is.  for  instance, 
stated  to  be  "  a  term  employed  to  express  various  concrete  vegetable  juices," 
and  Gammi  resince  "  concrete  natural  juices  of  plants  ....  consisting  of  gum 
and  resin."  Acacia  gummi,  enumerated  as  a  species  of  acacia  from  which  most 
of  the  gum  arabic  of  commerce  is  obtained,  was  probably  intended  for  A.  gum- 
mifera,  but  an  explanation  of  what  gum  arabic  means,  we  have  been  unable  to 
find. 
The  enumeration  of  botanical  species  requires  more  care,  the  recognized 
uames  and  their  synonyms  being  occasionally  given  as  of  equal  value,  and  the 
latest  edition  of  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  deserved  to  be  more  fre- 
quently consulted. 
The  second  part  of  the  work  consists  mostly  of  tables  collated  from  various 
sources.    The  advantage  of  the  select  prescriptions  in  such  a  work  is  not  ap- 
