EDITORIAL. 
191 
(  solution  being  an  indispensibie  condition  of  their  medicinai  action,)  he 
calls  pharmaco- chemistry. 
3d.  The  ultimate  effects  of  medicines  during  the  period  of  their  absorp- 
tion and  excretion,  he  considers  the  most  important  of  all,  and  calls  it 
pharmaco-dynamics. 
Thus  understood,  pharmacy  might  well  claim  to  rank  among  the  sciences, 
but  we  very  much  doubt  the  propriety  of  thus  invading  the  province  of  the 
physiologist  and  therapeutist,  in  adding  to  the  importance  of  our  scientific 
art. 
The  sixth  and  last  chapter  is  devoted  to  special  medicines  as  caustics, 
styptics,  vesicants,  purgatives,  etc.  The  subject  of  the  action  of  cathartics 
is  entered  upon  in  detail,  and  the  different  classes,  as  saline,  resinous,  oily, 
soluble  and  insoluble,  fully  discussed.  To  attempt  to  introduce  here  any  one 
of  the  numerous  passages  which  possess  novelty  and  interest,  would  be  of 
no  avail  in  conveying  to  the  reader  a  correct  idea  of  M.  Mialhe's  work,  but 
we  intend,  on  another  occasion,  when  more  space  is  at  command,  to  give 
several  extracts  that  will  be  read  with  interest.  How  far  the  author  is  sup- 
ported in  many  of  his  ingenious  views  in  pharmacodynamics,  by  facts  and 
results,  it  is  not  our  province  to  determine,  yet  we  cannot  but  believe,  not- 
withstanding the  caution  so  often  held  up,  that  the  chemistry  of  the  animal 
economy  is  not  the  chemistry  of  the  test  tube,  that  M.  Mialhe  has  materially 
advanced  the  limits  of  observation  in  that  wonderful  and  perplexing  pro- 
blem, the  modus  operandi  of  the  living  animal  organism  in  reference  to 
ingested  matter. 
The  book  is  from  the  establishment  of  M.  Victor  Masson,  Paris,  and  is 
printed  in  a  style  of  unusual  excellence. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States  of  America,  By  authority  of  the 
National  Medical  Convention,  held  at  Washington,  A.  D.  1850.  Second 
Edition.  Philadelphia:  J.  B,  Lippincott  &  Co.,  1855,  pp.  317.  Duo- 
decimo. 
Since  the  publication  of  the  first  Edition  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  1820, 
the  present  is  the  first  instance  when  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  issue 
an  inter-periodical  edition.  The  Committee  of  Publication  have  not  felt 
justified  in  making  additions  to  the  work  of  preparations  of  recent  origin, 
nor  of  new  drugs,  and  have  limited  their  labor  to  the  correction  of  some 
few-errors  of  the  previous  edition,  and  to  a  few  changes  (in  the  processes 
for  Solutions  of  Nitrate  of  Iron  and  Citrate  of  Magnesia)  which  seemed 
to  be  much  needed.  In  "  accordance  with  an  expressed  wish  from  seve- 
ral respectable  sources,"  this  edition  has  been  published  in  a  cheaper  form, 
so  that  it  is  within  the  reach  of  all ;  and  it  is  to  be  desired  that  in  the  fu- 
ture Decennial  revisions,  attention  will  be  given  to  this  point,  so  essential 
in  effecting  the  wide  adoption  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  as  the  authorized  guide 
