EditoriaL — Reviews,  etc. 
\.m  Tour.  Pharnu 
Feb.,  1880 
1)6  used  he  is  going  beyond  his  province."  This  is  quite  correct ;  but  we  wish  to 
remind  Dr.  Edes  that  the  aim  and  the  practice  of  the  various  pharmaceutical  col- 
leges and  associations  is,  in  part,  exactly  that  which  he  points  out  in  the  first  part  of 
the  sentence  quoted,  while  the  condition  depicted  in  the  latter  half  has  been  brought 
about,  not  by  the  hoodwinking  of  the  pharmaceutical  profession,  but  through  the 
easy-gosng  credulity  of  the  medical  profession  and  press.  Medical  journals  fre- 
quently extol  preparations  of  the  composition  and  mode  of  manufacture  of  which 
neither  the  writers  of  such  articles  nor  the  editors  of  the  journals  can  have  the 
remotest  idea.  The  dispensing  pharmacist  is  compelled  to  procure  what  the  physi- 
cian orders,  even  though,  as  Dr.  Bolles  stated  before  the  society,  he  may  have 
three  or  four  good  manufactures  of  extract  of  malt  on  his  shelves,  and  be  obliged  to 
get  a  fifth  kind,  "  because  it  is  put  up  in  such  pretty  bottles." 
The  physician  creates  the  demand,  and,  in  very  many  cases,  the  pharmacist  can- 
not supply  it,  but  has  to  fall  back  upon  the  manufacturers.  Of  course  it  is  to  the 
iatter's  interest — and  this  is  perfectly  legitimate — to  respond  to  the  demand,  and,  if 
possible,  to  increase  it.  We  do  not  blame  them,  as  long  as  they  can  find  credulous 
doctors  to  prescribe  their  inventions,  to  get  up  new  ones  whenever  a  bright  idea, 
with  the  probability  of  money  in  it,  dawns  upon  them  5  but  we  do  not  regard  this 
as  legitimate  pharmacy,  even  though  such  preparations  be  endorsed  or  prescribed  by 
professors  in  medical  colleges. 
Dr.  Bolles  was  correct  in  stating  that  physicians  were  more  to  be  censured  in  this 
matter  than  the  manufacturers  or  their  agents — and  most  decidedly  more  than  the 
pharmacist,  who  has  to  gratify  such  whims,  not  unfrequently  to  his  loss  Let  the 
physician  confine  himself  as  much  as  possible  to  pharmacopoeial  preparations,  and 
let  him,  as  Dr.  Bolles  suggested, '*  hold  the  pharmacist  personally  responsible  for 
the  quality  of  their  medicines,  not  directing  them  to  get  this  or  that  manufacturer's 
ordinary  preparations,  nor  allowing  them  to  shield  themselves  behind  the  names  of 
any  wholesale  makers,  however  famous  "  Not  until  then  will  the  evil  of  which  Dr. 
Edes  complains  be  eradicated. 
There  are  other  points  in  Dr.  Edes'  paper  to  which  fairly  objection  may  be  taken. 
We  do  not  believe  that,  after  due  consideration,  he  would  rejterate  that  morphia 
and  atropia  were  all  that  is  essential  in  thirty-two  officinal  preparations.  And  in 
regard  to  recognition  by  the  pharmacopoeia,  we  believe  that  his  own  admission,  with 
regard  to  iron  preparations,  will  reconcile  him  with  the  coming  pharmacopoeia,  the 
scope  of  which  will  probably  be  extended  rather  than  abridged. 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
Pharmacographia  — A  history  of  the  principal  drugs  of  vegetable  origin  met  with 
in  Great  Britain  and  British  India.  By  Friedrich  A.  Fliickiger,  Phil.  Dr.,  Pro- 
fessor in  the  University  of  Strassburg,  and.Daniel  Hanbury,  F.R.S.,  Fellow  of  the 
Linnean  and  Chemical  Societies  of  London.  Second  edition.  London  .  Mac- 
Millan  &  Co.  (22  Bond  street.  New  York),  1879.  ^^o-j  PP-  ^^l-  Price,  $5. 
We  take  great  pleasure  in  calling  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  appearance 
