92 
EDITORIAL. 
The  course  pursued  by  the  Association  was  certainly  the  correct  one,  as 
any  such  recommendation  would,  at  best,  receive  but  partial  attention,  and 
would  be  worse  than  useless  unless  universally  adopted  by  the  apothecaries 
of  each  city.  The  German  plan  of  putting  the  word  poison  (gift)  on  such 
substances  is  more  feasible. 
The  President  not  being  in  attendance,  Dr.  Usher  Parsons,  one  of  the 
Vice  Presidents,  delivered  the  annual  address. 
The  other  principal  subjects  are  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Medi- 
cal Education  ;  Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Epidemics  of  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee;  on  Erysipelas,  by  R.  S.  Holmes,  M.  D.,  of  St.  Louis;  on 
the  medicinal  and  toxicological  properties  of  the  Cryptogamic  plants  of  the 
United  States,  by  F.  Peyre  Porcher,  M.  D.,  of  Charleston  ;  Report  on  the 
Epidemics  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Michigan  for  the  years  1852  and  '53 ; 
Report  on  the  Epidemics  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Arkansas  and  Texas, 
in  the  year  1853 ;  Prize  essay  on  a  new  method  of  treating  ununited 
fractures,  etc.,  by  David  Brainard,  M.  D.,  with  lithograph  plates ;  Report 
on  the  Norwalk  disaster  ;  and  Dr.  Linton's  remarks  on  yellow  fever. 
Of  these  papers,  the  one  most  interesting  to  pharmaceutists  is  the  elaborate 
report  of  Dr.  Porcher  on  the  Cryptogamia  of  the  United  States,  which  ex- 
tends to  120  pages  octavo,  and  which  has  occupied  the  author  several  years.  It 
is  a  supplement  to  the  report  on  the  Botany  of  South  Carolina,  presented 
.  and  published  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Transactions.  In  noticing  the 
species,  Dr.  Porcher  gives  no  botanical  description,  merely  the  generic  and 
specific  names  and  the  common  names,  followed  by  the  information  he  has 
been  able  to  collect,  in  reference  both  to  indigenous  and  foreign  species. 
The  genera  Agarieus  and  Boletus  are  particularly  full,  and  this  section  will 
prove  serviceable  in  pointing  out  the  noxious  species  of  the  mushroom  tribe. 
There  are  many  items  in  this  report  that  would  interest  our  readers,  but 
our  space  will  not  admit  <)f  their  insertion. 
The  annual  publication  of  reports,  on  the  prevailing  diseases  of  the 
several  districts  of  the  United  States,  must  eventually  prove  of  immense 
service  to  the  medical  profession,  in  enabling  them  to  generalize  more  cor- 
rectly in  reference  to  the  causes  and  treatment  of  epidemics,  and  to  advocate, 
with  the  authority  of  knowledge,  those  public  hygienic  precautions  which 
every  community  is  bound  to  carry  out;  but  which  are  too  often  left  untaken 
until  the  severity  of  punishment  that  follows  their  neglect  compels  their 
effectual  adoption. 
The  Transactions  of  the  Association  have  heretofore  been  printed  in 
Philadelphia.  Some  little  feeling  was  manifested  at  the  St.  Louis  meeting 
by  the  New  York  members,  which  resulted  in  the  publication  committee 
being  chiefly  selected  from  that  city ;  hence,  the  present  volume  is  published 
in  New  York ;  it  is  well  printed  on  good  paper,  and  is,  as  far  as  we  are  able 
to  judge,  creditable  to  the  body  from  which  it  emanates. 
