Mr. DAVIES has translated the Manual of Materia Medica and
Pharmacy, which two of the most enterprising and ingenious phy- sicians of Paris, Mr. EDWARDS and Mr. VAVASSEUR, had originally published in French. It contains a description of all the articles used in medicine, their appearance, and their history, with obser- vations on the proper mode of combining and administering them. The work is not merely translated, it is also adapted: for the mi- nute differences between the French and English schools of me- dicine is such as to render any literal translation of a pharmaceu- tical work of but little use. Mr. arms appears to have executed his task with industry and intelligence. In this small compass, we believe, there is no pharmacological work of similar extent, minuteness, and utility. By way of example of the nature of the work, to unlearned per- sons, we will quote the account of the Cajeput oil, which it seems Sir MATTHEW TIERNEY has found out, or is informed, is a specific in case of the much-dreaded and very formidable Cholera, and which the Russian Ambassador has, it is said, been buying up. Under the head of "Family Tiliaceee," or Linden-tree, occurs the following passage. " CAIEPUT OIL, Oleum cajeput, is obtained by distillation from the leaves of the Melaleuca leucadmulron Lin., Melaleuca cajeputi Smith and Maton; a shrub of the family Myrtinez, growing in Amboyn a and Borneo ; is not used in France, but very much employed in Asia, and occasionally in England. It is transparent, of a fine green colour, very fluid, lighter than water, very volatile, of a strong smell, similar to that of a mixture of camphor and essence of turpentine, of a sharp and fresh taste, analogous to that of camphor. It possesses very decided stimulant and diaphoretic properties, and seems to act also very efficaciously as an antispasmodic. English practitioners sometimes administer it in gastralgia, hysteria, and other nervous diseases, in chronic rheumatic affections, certain kinds of palsies, &c, Dose, gutt,iij. to vj., and more, on sugar, or dissolved in alcohol. Externally, this oil is very successfully employed in frictions, mixed with olive oil, in order to sooth the pains of gout and rheumatism, in headaches, &c."
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