Reviews,  etc. 
[Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(      Nov.,  1879. 
JNote  sur  certains  Medicaments  Vegetaux  Americains  et  sur  leur  Formes  Pharmaceutic 
ques.    Par  Charles  Rice,  Anvers,  1879,  PP-  J3« 
:Note  on  certain  American  vegetable  medicaments  and  their  pharmaceutical  prepara- 
tions. 
The  paper  was  written  as  a  reply  to  a  letter  of  the  Antwerp  Pharmaceutical 
Society,  addressed  to  the  New  York  College  of  Pharmacy,  and  treats  of  Alnus 
rubra,  Prunus  virginiana,  Frasera  Walteri,  Gelsemium  sempervirens,  Hamamelis 
virginica  and  other  American  drugs  and  their  preparations. 
On  the  Connection  of  the  Hepatic  Functions  with  Uterine  Hyperemias ,  Fluxious,  Con- 
gestions and  Inflammations.  By  L.  F.  Warner,  M.D.,  Boston,  Mass.,  1879,  PP*  37- 
This  is  a  reprint  from  the  Transactions  of  the  American  Medical  Association  for 
1878,  and  contains  in  an  appendix  the  views  on  the  same  and  kindred  subjects  of 
a  number  of  prominent  physicians. 
'The  National  Dispensatory  Containing  the  Natural  History,  Chemistry,  Pharmacy 
Action  and  Uses  oj  Medicines  Recognized  in  the  Pharmacopeias  of  the  United 
States,  Great  Britain  and  Germany,  ivith  Numerous  References  to  the  French  Codex. 
By  Alfred  Stille,  M.D.  and  John  M.  Maisch,  Phar.D.  Second  edition  thoroughly 
revised  with  numerous  additions.  With  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  illustrations. 
Philadelphia:  Henry  C.  Lea,  1879. 
Scarcely  six  months  have  passed  since  we  had  occasion  to  comment  in  these 
columns  upon  the  appearance  of  the  National  Dispensatory,  and  already  we  find 
ourselves  surprised  by  the  publication  of  a  second  edition,  as  the  authors  justly 
remark,  "  revised  in  a  manner  to  render  the  volume  more  worthy  of  the  very 
marked  favor  with  which  the  book  has  been  received."  This  evidence  of  success, 
seldom  paralleled,  shows  clearly  how  well  the  authors  have  met  the  existing  needs  of 
the  pharmaceutical  and  medical  professions.  Gratifying  as  it  must  be  to  them,  they 
have  embraced  the  opportunity  offered  for  a  thorough  revision  of  the  whole  work, 
striving  to  embrace  within  it  all  that  might  have  been  omitted  in  the  former  edi- 
tion, and  all  that  has  newly  appeared  of  sufficient  importance  during  the  time  of  its 
collaboration,  and  the  short  interval  elapsed  since  the  previous  publication. 
There  is  no  field  within  the  vast  extent  of  chemical  research  wherein  has  been 
displayed  of  late  greater  activity  than  in  the  investigation  of  the  organic  constitu- 
ents of  the  almost  innumerable  products  of  the  vegetable  kingdom.  The  zeal  of 
scientific  investigators,  busy  at  work  to-day  in  all  zones  of  our  globe,  combined  with 
the  ever-increasing  facilities  of  commercial  intercourse,  bring  constantly  to  light 
new  plants,  whose  productions  invite  the  attention  of  the  chemists.  New  proximate 
principles  are  constantly  recognized  in  their  researches,  many  of  them  exhibiting 
properties  which,  in  their  peculiar  action  upon  the  animal  organism,  engage  the 
labors  of  the  physiologist,  whose  results  at  once  point  out  the  range  of  their  applica- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  practitioner  for  the  relief  of  suffering  humanity.  It  is  from 
this  field  the  authors  gathered  the  most  important  of  the  new  additions  to  their  work. 
How  well  they  have  collected  therefrom  is  shown,  e.  g.,  by  the  article  Duboisia, 
which  we  find  under  a  separate  heading;  by  that  of  Cotobark,  placed  as  an  allied 
drug  under  Nectandra,  and  by  the  account  of  the  constituents  of  the  several  species 
