Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
August,  1883.  ; 
Reviews,  etc. 
431 
long  life  and  to  ward  off' disease.  Prof.  Lloyd  shows  that  the  elixirs  form- 
erly used  in  medicine  and  those  which  are  still  recognized  by  European 
pharmacopoeias,  are  with  very  few  exceptions  not  sweetened;  that  the  idea 
accepted  in  our  country  at  the  present  time  regarding  what  should  be  the 
attributes  of  an  elixir  is  strictly  an  Americanism,  and  that  these  American 
elixirs  would  be  better  defined  by  the  term  cordial. 
It  was  not  an  easy  task  for  the  author  to  collect  and  critically  examine 
the  numerous  formulas  for  elixirs  which  are  scattered  through  the  journals 
and  other  publications  during  the  past  24  years ;  but  it  has  been  accom- 
plished, and  the  author's  own  experience  with  this  class  of  preparations 
has  been  added,  introducing  improvements  and  practical  useful  suggestions. 
Of  the  old-fashioned  elixirs,  all  the  important  ones  have  been  selected, 
mostly  with  the  more  or  less  modernized  formulas. 
The  book  gives  full,  and  what  is  better,  reliable  information  about  the 
numerous  elixirs  more  or  less  in  use,  and  as  long  as  physicians  will  con- 
tinue to  prescribe  these  "ready  made"  somewhat  medicated  preparations, 
it  will  be  of  gre^t  practical  usefulness.  With  the  admission  into  the  new 
Pharmacopoeia  of  the  Elixir  Aurantii  as  an  agreeable  vehicle,  it  may  be 
hoped  that  the  presoriber  will  gradually  learn  to  order  the  extemporaneous 
preparation  of  elixirs  suited  to  each  case,  instead  of  suiting  the  case  to  the 
ready  made  elixir ;  and  when  the  numerous  formulas  for  special  elixirs 
shall  have  become  things  of  the  past,  Professor  Lloyd's  book  may  then  not 
be  as  frequently  consulted  for  the  practical  use  to  be  made  of  it,  but  it  will 
retain  a  permanent  value  as  a  good  work  on  a  line  of  preparations,  which, 
for  a  time,  had  been  permitted  to  assume  greater  importance  than  they 
deserved.   
Oil,  Paint  and  Drug  Reporter  Yearbook,  1883.  New  York  :  Wm.  O.  Alli- 
son.   Pp.  179. 
Devoted  mainly  to  the  oil  interest  of  the  United  States,  we  find  in  this 
little  volume  the  rules  adopted  by  the  New  York  Produce  Exchange  for 
regulating  transactions  in  petroleum  and  in  oils ;  also,  statistical  informa- 
tion concerning  the  production,  importation,  exportation,  price,  etc,  of 
these  articles  for  a  series  of  years.  Similar  statistical  tables  are  also  given 
for  drugs  and  chemicals.   
The  Mineral  Waters  of  Europe,  including  a  short  description  of  Artificial 
Mineral  Waters.  By  C.  B.  C.  Tichborne,  LL.D.,  F.  C.  S.,  M.  R.  J.  A., 
etc.,  and  Prosser  James,  M.D.,  M.  B.  C.  P.,  etc.  London:  Bailli^re, 
Tindall  &  Cox.    1883.    12mo.,  pp.  224. 
Various  natural  causes  contribute  to  the  gradual  variation  in  the  compo- 
sition of  the  waters  of  mineral  springs,  and  when  they  are  bottled,  the  loss 
of  gas  likely  to  be  occasioned  by  the  operation,  causes  other  changes.  Many 
of  the  analyses  usually  published,  were  made  at  a  date,  when  the  means  for 
the  recognition  and  quantitative  determination  of  some  of  the  mineral  con- 
stituents were  far  inferior  to  what  they  have  become  more  recently ;  a  re- 
examination of  such  waters  from  time  to  time  would  therefore  seem  to  be 
desirable,  and  is  occasionally  made  in  Europe.  Professor  Tichborne  has 
made  nearly  one  hundred  new  analyses  of  bottled  mineral  waters,  and 
embodied  the  results  obtained  in  the  work  before  us,  which  contains  also  a 
