Abstract
This volume is one of a very useful series of Manuals, beautifully got-up and published by Mr In issuing so expensive a volume at so low a price, the publisher has, we doubt not, rightly estimated the wants of the profession, and the probable sale of such a work.
Abstract
" If it should be asked," says the author, " whether another work on materia medica was required in addition to the numbers which already exist, it must be replied, that this was undertaken at the repeated request of its publisher, who may be supposed to be well acquainted with the wants of the profession. This one, however, would not have been sufficient to induce the author to undertake the work, had he not also been aware from the complaints of pupils, and convinced from his experience as a teacher, that the student of materia medica required something systematic to study, which, brought up to the present time, should be sufficiently full for information, and yet as short and condensed as was compatible with the avoidance of being superficial." In both respects, although unable to satisfy himself, we think that, with one exception, to which allusion will subsequently be made, the author has been abundantly successful.
Abstract
The difficulty experienced, both in the lecture-room and in preparing a work like the present, of treating many parts of the subject briefly, is, as the author states, increased, in consequence of the authoritative regulations by which students are compelled to attend the course of Materia Medica, during the first year of their attendance on lectures, ignorant of all the sciences, an acquaintance with which is absolutely necessary to the study of materia medica. It would doubtless be a great improvement in the existing regulations, if the student were compelled to commence his medical studies by Summer courses of Botany and Zoology, or Comparative Anatomy; Chemistry and Natural Philosophy having constituted a part of his preliminary education. As it is, there is a great deal of needless repetition in the several departments of our Colleges, and the subject of materia medica is rendered unnecessarily complex, and too often wearisome to the student. But there is also, in our estimation, a greater evil

In issuing so expensive a volume at so low a price, the publisher has, we doubt not, rightly estimated the wants of the profession, and the probable sale of such a work. " If it should be asked," says the author, " whether another work on materia medica was required in addition to the numbers which already exist, it must be replied, that this was undertaken at the repeated request of its publisher, who may be supposed to be well acquainted with the wants of the profession. This one, however, would not have been sufficient to induce the author to undertake the work, had he not also been aware from the complaints of pupils, and convinced from his experience as a teacher, that the student of materia medica required something systematic to study, which, brought up to the present time, should be sufficiently full for information, and yet as short and condensed as was compatible with the avoidance of being superficial." In both respects, although unable to satisfy himself, we think that, with one exception, to which allusion will subsequently be made, the author has been abundantly successful.

The difficulty experienced, both in the lecture-room and in preparing a work like the present, of treating many parts of the subject briefly, is, as the author states, increased, in consequence of the authoritative regulations by which students are compelled to attend the course of Materia Medica, during the first year of their attendance on lectures, ignorant of all the sciences, an acquaintance with which is absolutely necessary to the study of materia medica. It would doubtless be a great improvement in the existing regulations, if the student were compelled to commence his medical studies by Summer courses of Botany and Zoology, or Comparative Anatomy; Chemistry and Natural Philosophy having constituted a part of his preliminary education. As it is, there is a great deal of needless repetition in the several departments of our Colleges, and the subject of materia medica is rendered unnecessarily complex, and too often wearisome to the student. But there is also, in our estimation, a greater evil still. For, owing to the multiplicity of subjects of which the professor of materia medica and therapeutics has to treat, the most important department, the actions of medicines and their application to practical purposes, therapeutics, is treated as though it were of minor and subordinate importance. Yet this is the information which the student does not get elsewhere, and for which he naturally looks to the teacher of therapeutics.

Nor is this very serious evil confined to the lecture-room ; it obtains more or less in almost all our modern works on materia medica, and the present one, we are sorry to find, does not form an exception. Let think is the defect of the volume, it is because we are deeply impressed with the importance of rendering every facility to both student and practitioner in the application to the purposes of daily practice of the information which treatises on Materia Medica are intended to convey, and because we have long felt it to be a crying evil that in such works, the therapeutic department should be neglected for mere chemical and botanical details. The author will, we are quite sure, add greatly to the obligations he has already conferred, if, in a future edition (which will undoubtedly soon be required), he will devote more space to the therapeutic department. We must not omit to observe that the utility of the volume is enhanced by an excellent Index. We have given a few of the drawings as a specimen of the excellent illustrative wood-engravings.

( Figure 64 is a representation of the Melaleuca Cajuputi; Figure 69 ?represents a specimen of Narthex Assafoetida, grown in the H. E. India Company's Botanic Garden at Saharunpore; Figure 78 of the Olea Europoea; and Figure 83 of the Hyoscyamus Niger.) 

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