desire to become one, the German synonymy is of course of little or no moment. The work of Dr. Carson differs from that of Dr. Griffith essentially in this;-that whilst the text is subordinate, in the former, to the "Illustrations,"-in the latter, the xylographic representations are subordinate to the text. This difference between the works is sufficiently shown by a comparison of the title pages. After stating in his "Introduction" the necessity for a lecturer, who is desirous of being successful, "to have at his command the means of presenting to his hearers the visible objects, or representations of them, about which he discourses," Dr. Carson adds: "As regards the department of Materia Medica, the instruction usually given is accompanied by the exhibition of delineations of Medical Plants. This will answer the ends of the teacher, and greatly aid the listener for the time being; but amidst the multiplicity of objects, and from the brief period allowed for inspection, the impression made upon the mind is soon enfeebled, and in most cases altogether fades, if close and more protracted observation be not afforded. It is then desirable to possess the means of reviving impressions received, of studying the subject at leisure, and of rendering the plants familiar. But not only to students will the publication be serviceable; it will materially aid numerous teachers, whose facilities of access to the works from which the necessary materials for illustration can be derived, are few and imperfect, and in this respect a double end will be accomplished."***"As the design of the work," he concludes, "is simply to present the botanical history of the materia medica, and not a complete account of it, with the exception of indicating the modes of operation peculiar to each substance, all therapeutical and pharmaceutical details appertaining to it have been omitted. The works especially written with the view of unfolding them are full, and easy of access." p. 6. It is proper to remark, that after acknowledging the sources whence information has been derived, Dr. Carson adds: "From the collection of specimens, which during the last ten years he has been enabled to make, and which have been employed by him in the Courses at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, many of the representations are entirely new, and where they are not strictly so, corrections have been made from this source, which render them more valuable than those which have been used as copy." p. 6. The following account of a well known indigenous article of the materia medica will exhibit the Author's mode of managing the text: POLYGALA SENEGA.-Linnæus. SEX. SYST.-Diadelphia Octandria. GEN. CHAR.-Sepals five, persistent, the ale large and petaloid. Petals three, their claws all united with the staminiferous tube, the lower one (carina) keel-shaped, the two additional ones abortive. Stamens united into a tube at the base, which is cleft in front; anthers opening by a pore. Ovary two-celled; ovules, solitary, pendulous from the apex of the cell. Capsule two-locular, loculicidal, compressed. Seeds pendulous from the apex of the cells, pubescent with a carunculate arillus at the hilum; albumen abundant, fleshy. Shrubs or herbaceous plants. Flowers arranged in terminal or axillary racemes. (Wright and Arnott in Lindley's Flora Medica.) SPECIF. CHAR.-Root perennial, large, firm, and ligneous, with coarse branches. Stem nine to fifteen inches high, mostly several from the same root; simple, herbaceous, rather flaccid, and oblique, terete below, slightly angular above; minutely roughish-pubescent, with numerous small, ovate, sessile scales, like leaves, at or near the base. Leaves one to two, or three inches long, and one-third of an inch to near an inch wide, smoothish, slightly serulate or scabrous on the margin, more or less acuminately tapering at apex, and narrowed at base to a short petiole. Spike one to two inches long, dense, terminal, somewhat nodding, or flaccid; pedicels very short, each with an oblong lance-shaped bract at base, and two minute lateral bracts. Flowers greenish-white. Capsule obcordate, compressed, orbicular, retuse. Seeds large, pyriform, hairy. This plant is an inhabitant of the United States; found in Pennsylvania, but more abundantly in the Southern and Western States. It flowers from June to August, and ripens its seeds as it flowers. The root, which is the medicinal portion, is of various sizes, sometimes as thick as large quills, and at others minute and delicate. The head is disposed in the old roots to be enlarged, rough, and irregular, from the separation of the stems annually. It is branched, fibrous, contorted, and twisted, and marked by a sharp line or ridge, which extends the entire length. It is composed of a cortical substance and a ligneous cord. The colour varies from a dark-brown to a yellow. The dried root resembles the fresh, but is broken with a short fracture. It has a peculiar, disagreeable smell, and the taste is at first sweetish but afterward acrid and disagreeable. In this root have been detected two new acids by Quevenne, Polygalic acid and Virgineic acid, as also tannic acid. The first is capable of union with bases; it is the principle called by Gehlen Senegin; the second is volatile and oily, and may be the volatile oil detected by Dulong. The acrid taste is due to the polygalic acid. The medical properties of Senega are determined by the dose. In large quantity it is a nauseant and emetic; in smaller, diaphoretic, expectorant, and diuretic. It cannot be regarded as poisonous, although much inconvenience may be induced by an overdose. It is used in pulmonary affections, principally as a stimulant expectorant. It has also been proposed as an emmenagogue. The introduction to the notice of the medical profession is due to Dr. Tennent, of Virginia, who became acquainted with it from learning that the Indians used it as a remedy in the bites of venomous snakes; hence the name of Snake-root. This remedial power, however, has not been sustained. It has been given in powder, but as it imparts its virtues to water, some of the preparations are preferred, as the decoction or syrup. Cox's Hive Syrup owes a part of its properties to this root. This is only the first part of the work. The Prospectus informs us, that it is to be completed in five numbers, of twenty plates each, the price of each number to subscribers being five dollars, payable on delivery. The plates are beautifully executed on stone, and, in the case of plants with which we are familiar, are accurately coloured and life-like. We may infer, therefore, that such is the case with those with which we are unacquainted. Can further recommendations be needed for an undertaking so creditable to all concerned, and which, whilst it instructs the scientific inquirer, must be an object of interest and even of virtu to all? SYDENHAM SOCIETY'S WORKS. On the Injuries and Diseases of Bones. Being Selections from the collected edition of the Clinical Lectures of Baron Dupuytren, Surgeon-in-chief to the Hôtel-Dieu at Paris. Translated and edited by F. LE GROS CLARK, Assistant Surgeon to, and Lecturer on Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital. 8vo. pp. 459. London: 1847. This is the second work issued by the Sydenham Society of Londou to its members of the year 1846-7. The first, containing Hewson's contributions to scientific medicine, was noticed by us in a late number. At the request of the Council of the Society, Mr. Clark undertook to translate and edit a volume, which should comprise all the papers on the Injuries and Diseases of the Bones contained in the Leçons Orales of the most distinguished French surgeon of modern times; and the following introductory remarks will explain the "scope, objects and arrangement of the work." "In the original," says Mr. Clark," the articles in question are scattered through the first two volumes of the Leçons Orales,' without any regard to appropriate collocation. Moreover, much confusion is the consequence of frequent and sudden changes from the first to the third person;-the Professor being made sometimes to speak in the former, at others in the latter; or, again, his editors speak for him, or quote his opinions. In the translation it has been thought desirable to impart an uniform style to the work; as well as to render the French into corresponding idiomatic English, as far as was compatible with a strict adherence to the meaning of the author. To carry out this intention, a paraphrastic translation has been, in a measure, rendered essential. Compression, also, has been resorted to in details generally; and many of the cases have been abridged, especially in those parts of them which have no immediate reference to the subjects under consideration. In short, the object has been, to render the present treatise more acceptable to the English reader, by disencumbering the original of needless repetition and redundancy,-a process of condensation to which one cannot but believe that the author himself would have subjected the work, had he superintended its publication in a complete form; although it is not difficult to appreciate the motives of his able editors, in retaining and enlarging upon all that fell from their esteemed preceptor." p. vi. A biographical sketch of the author is prefixed to the volume, which has the rare merit, that whilst it depicts in glowing terms the elevated intellectual qualities of the subject of the biography, it does not conceal his admitted failings. It is a picture of the man as he was, not as the biographer would wish him to have been. The third issue of the Sydenham Society for the year will be the works of the illustrious Harvey. Lectures on subjects connected with Clinical Medicine; comprising Diseases of the Heart. By P. M. LATHAM, M. D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, and late Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 8vo. pp. 365. Ed. Barrington and Geo. D. Haswell. Philadelphia, 1847. In his capacity of physician to one of the largest Hospitals in London, during a number of years, the author of these lectures enjoyed unusual opportunities for watching the phenomena and progress of disease, and the influence of medical treatment, and few men have evinced greater zeal to avail themselves of such advantages, or have been endowed with higher powers for profiting by them. Unlike many of our most admired investigators of the present day, he does not present us with a mass of heterogeneous matter in the shape of facts, without the least seeming object or combination; but resemblances are noticed, concurrences pointed out, and deductions, natural and obvious, are drawn, so that the reader is made to comprehend the philosophy as well as the facts of the science. The object of the lecturer has been to present to the student a concise account of the diseases of the heart, as met with at the bed side, and not that extended investigation into all that relates to the subject, which is found in the more comprehensive work of Dr. Hope. It differs, too, from the latter work in strictly avoiding all controversy. "Mine," he remarks, "is a limited purpose. It is to regard the diseases of the heart only in one point of view, i. e., as they appear in the living man. But this one point of view includes the several objects of their clinical diagnosis, and their clinical history, and their medical treatment." Rightly conceiving that "the clinical diagnosis of diseases of the heart, owes all the higher degrees of certainty to which it has been carried in our own times, entirely to auscultatory signs," "the natural sounds and impulses and resonances" of the organ are accurately described, in order that the degree and extent of variations from these may be understood as evidences of unsoundness. The whole subject, of diseases of the heart, including angina pectoris and pericardiac affections, is treated in a brief but masterly manner. A treatise on the diseases of the eye. By W. LAWRENCE, F.R.S., Surgeon Extraordinary to the Queen, etc. etc. etc. A new edition. Edited, with numerous additions, and one hundred and seventy-six illustrations, by ISAAC HAYS, M. D., Surgeon to Wills' Hospital; Physician to the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum; Member of the American Philosophical Society; Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, etc. etc. 8vo. pp. 859. Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1847. The treatise on diseases of the eye by Mr. Lawrence has been |