Medical Chemistry. — Manuel de Chimie Médicale et Pharmaceutique

Abstract

WE have here a comprehensive text-book of chemistry, in which the medical and pharmaceutical applications of the science are specially noticed. The author is one of the professors in the School of Pharmacy at Paris, and the “mineral chemistry” of the manual is essentially a reproduction of his course of lectures. The “organic chemistry” is based on the course of Professor Berthelot, and the toxicological portions of the work reflect the teaching of Professor Bouis. Though designed for the use of students of medicine and pharmacy, this manual is primarily a systematic exposition of the fundamental facts of chemistry, and its technical character is revealed only in incidental explanations. Thus, sulphuric acid is noticed with the oxygenated sulphur compounds, and its properties, preparation, commercial manufacture, purification, and chemical constitution, receive adequate treatment before its medical employment and its action as an irritant poison are considered. Again, in the section on the natural alkaloïds we get the chemical history of each of the more important opium bases before we obtain any information respecting the assay of opium, the action of the drug on the human system, or the symptoms of poisoning by opiates. The officinal processes for preparing the chemical substances used in medicine are plainly but briefly described, and practical directions are given for testing the punty and estimating the strength of commercial products. The author has devoted 150 pages to “biological chemistry”, an important section of the science which receives scant notice in most manuals, and has minutely described methods of analysing milk, blood, urine, and calculi, which may be adopted by the physician to obtain trustworthy indications of the progress of disease or the effects of medicines. Professor Riche's manual has so many good qualities that we reluctantly call attention to a characteristic which detracts from its value as a treatise on general chemistry. While admitting that the modern or molecular notation is preferable to the notation based on the old equivalents, the author, deliberately rejects the former “because it is not yet recognised in the official programmes.” Consequently, the book is filled with symbolic formulae, which do not accord with accepted theories. Medical Chemistry.—Manuel de Chimie Médicale et Pharmaceutique. Par Alfred Riche. 8vo., pp. 771, figures 104. (Paris: Germer-Baillière, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate.)