186 
EDITORIAL. 
The  Sydenham  Society. — From  the  Medical  News,  for  February,  we  learn 
that  the  Sydenham  Society,  of  London,  which  for  many  years  past  has  been 
republishing  valuable  old  medical  works,  has  ceased  to  exist.  Great  efforts 
are  being  made  to  reconstruct  it,  and  the  editor  of  the  News  expresses  the 
wish  that,  if  successful,  the  publications  of  the  Society  will  be  more  modern 
in  their  character. 
Bank  Note  Engraving  and  Ink. — Our  friend  Charles  T.  Carney  has  be- 
come a  great  adept  in  the  art  of  testing  the  quality  of  bank  note  engraving  as 
regards  its  indelibility.  The  activity  with  which  counterfeiting  is  carried 
on  by  photographing  and  engraving  has  caused  a  universal  interest  among 
bankers  to  get  an  ink  that  cannot  be  removed  from  the  paper  without  de- 
stroying it,  and  to  make  additional  security,  colored  counter  impression? 
in  colored  inks  have  been  employed.  It  is  especially  in  reference  to  these 
last  that  attention  has  been  given,  to  get  them  so  permanent  that  they 
cannot  be  removed  from  the  paper  without  destroying  the  impression  be- 
neath. Such  an  ink,  called  "  The  Canada  Bank  Note  printing  tint"  was  sub- 
mitted to  Professors  T.  Sterry  Hunt,  John  Torrey,  Wolcott  Gibbs,  B.  Silli- 
man,  Jr.,  and  E.  H.  Horsford,  who  all  certified  to  its  indestructible  character. 
Mr.  Carney  having  one  of  the  notes  printed  with  this  ink  submitted  to 
him,  returned  the  note  uninjured,  with  one  half  of  the  green  tinting  removed, 
which  he  can  effect  by  two  distinct  methods.  It  is  well  for  the  banks  that 
our  acute  friend  is  an  honest  and  respectable  pharmaceutist  of  Boston. 
The  Elements  of  Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics,  adapted  to  the  American 
Reformed  and  Eclectic  Practice;  with  numerous  illustrations.  By  J. 
Kost,  M.  D.,  Professor  of  Materia  Medica  in  the  American  Medical  Col- 
lege, Cincinnati,  &c.  New  edition,  revised  and  enlarged.  Cincinnati  : 
Moore,  Wilstach,  Keys  &  Co.,  1858.    Pp.  829. 
That  portion  of  the  medical  practitioners  of  the  United  States,  who  dis- 
tinguish themselves  as  a  body  by  the  term  "  Eclectic,"  appear  in  a  fair 
way  to  be  supplied  with  a  medical  literature  of  their  own  "  getting  up." 
The  wide  scope  of  choice  which  they  claim  in  the  selection  and  adoption 
of  medical  ideas  from  all  systems  of  medicine,  is  applied  with  the  same 
free  hand  when  particular  branches  of  the  subject  are  to  be  illustrated  in 
print,  with  an  additional  advantage,  arising  from  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
hampered  by  the  ethics  of  the  National  Association,  nor  bound  down  to  the 
scientific  exactitude  of  pharmacopoeial  nomenclature  or  processes.  With 
the  Journals  and  works  of  the  regular  medical  profession  before  them, 
works  that  have  been  built  up  by  the  united  labors  of  its  members  during 
past  ages,  and  especially  the  present  prolific  period  of  observation  and  ex- 
periment, the  process  of  compilation  and  transformation  goes  on  simulta- 
neously ;  and  when  the  new  volume  issues  from  the  press,  for  aught  the 
careless  observer  or  reader  can  tell,  it  is  a  masterpiece  of  Eclectic  original- 
