^junei;  18™}  Revieios  and  Blhlio graphical  Notices.       •  287 
dilla  and  in  the  cormiis  or  so-called  root  of  Colchicum  autumnale.  White 
hellebore  is  also  said  to  contain  three  other  alkaloids — sabadiliia,  colchicia  and 
jervia."  This  has  to  be  corrected  to  read  that  cevadilla  contains  veratria  and 
sabadiliia  ;  Ver.  album,  jervia  and  another  alkaloid  (which  is  most  likely  not 
veratria) ;  Ver.  viride.  no  veratria.  but  two  other  alkaloids  (C.  Bullock).  Col- 
chicum contains  colchicia,  which  in  1820  Pelletier  and  Caventou  declared  to 
be  identical  with  veratria,  but  which  the  researches  of  Geiger  and  Hesse,  Car- 
ter, Hiibschmann,  Bley,  Oberlin,  Hiibler,  Diehl  and  others  proved  to  be  dis- 
tinct. 
On  page  341  we  miss  the  fact  that  the  bark  of  Cerasus  serotma  yields  hydro- 
cyanic acid;  on  pages  344  and  346  the  conversion  of  the  resins  of  the  Convol- 
vulaceae  by  fixed  alkalies  into  acids,  soluble  in  water,  is  omitted,  and  the  state- 
ment is  repeated,  which  has  never  been  proven,  that  the  etherial  resin  of  the 
true  jalap  is  identical  with  the  resin  of  7p omasa  orizabensis. 
Notwithstanding  these  defects  and  some  others  of  minor  importance,  we 
heartily  recommend  this  work  to  the  pharmacist  and  physician.  The  latter  will 
be  particularly  pleased  with  the  urinary  analysis,  which  is  illustrated  with  a 
number  of  good  wood  cuts  of  microscopical  tests  ;  and  both  professions  will 
derive  much  information  from  the  several  tables  contained  in  the  work,  particu- 
larly the  analytical  tables,  and  the  tables  of  solubilities  and  of  impurities? 
although  our  Pharmacopoeia  gives  some  special  tests  which  are  not  alluded  to 
in  this  table. 
Half-yearly  Compendium  of  Medical  Science.  A  Synopsis  of  the  American  and 
Foreign  Literature  of  IViedicine  Surgery  and  the  Collateral  Sciences  for  six 
months,  edited  by  S.  W.  Butler,  M.D.,  D.  C,  Brinton,  M.  D.,  and  bv  H. 
Napheys,  M.  D.,  Part  VII,  January,  1871.  Philadelphia,  S.  W.  Butler,  M.D. 
Price,  single  numbers,  Tl  ;  per  annum,  in  advance,  $3. 
The  delay  in  the  publication  of  this  number  was  caused  by  the  loss  of  a  large 
and  important  portion  of  copy  by  the  printer,  which  for  a  long  time  was  con- 
cealed from  the  publisher,  and  when  concealment  became  impossible,  it  re- 
quired considerable  time  to  supply  the  loss. 
The  number  before  us  is  a  volume  of  338  pages,  containing  nearly  300  articles 
collated  from  117  American  and  173  foreign  writers,  and  culled  from  73  differ- 
ent publications.  The  material  from  French  sources  is  less  than  usual,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  war  prevailing  in  that  country  during  the  latter  half  of  last 
year.  The  selections  appear  to  have  been  made  with  considerable  care  and  are 
judiciously  arranged.  The  references  to  the  journals  containing  the  original 
articles  are  in  most  cases  sufficient ;  but  occasionally  the  date  of  the  journal  is 
omitted  ;  and  where  the  original  appeared  in  a  publication  in  a  foreigr)  language, 
reference  might  have  been  made  to  the  English  or  American  journal  in  which 
the  article  has  found  its  way,  so  as  to  facilitate  future  researches. 
In  glancing  over  the  pages  of  this  compendium,  we  observe  many 
typographical  errors,  —  as  for  instance,  podophylli  resinm  on  page  54,  in 
most  cases  easily  corrected  ;  on  page  54  the  word  aconitme  is  used  twice  in  the 
place  of  aconite  or  aconititm ;  lococtonum  should  be  Ij/coctoniim.  But  the 
greatest  oversights  occur  in  the  titles  of  foreign  journals,  and  particularly  of 
the  German  language,  which,  as  a  rule,  are  spelled  incorrectly,  while  compara- 
tively few  misspellings  have  been  made  with  the  French  journals. 
