RECENT BOOKS MAY'S CHEMISTRY OF SYNTHETIC DRUGS. Percy May, DSc. (Lond.), F.1 C., Consulting Chemist and Chartered Patent Agent, and G. Malcolm Dyson, Ph.D., F.I.C., A.M.I.Chem.E., Chief Chemist. Genatosan Ltd. Fourth Edition. Longmans, Green and Company. London, New York, Toronto, 1939. xxxii 350 pp. 5 figs. 14 X 22 cm. $6.00. Those familiar with the third edition of this well-known work will welcome this joint effort, in which G. Malcolm Dyson, author of THE CHEMISTRY OF CHEMOTHERAPY (1928), collaborated. The need for a modern and reliable book in this field is acute, and hence this fourth edition will find wide use. Everyone will appreciate the senior author's sentiments when he writes in the preface, "The third edition appeared seventeen years ago, hut that edition differedonly in minor respects from the two previous ones. Since then advances made in the subject-matter covered by the book have been enormous, hut nevertheless the third edition has continued all the time to find favour with those for whom it was written. My satisfaction as author with such a state of a5airs is, however, strongly tempered with regret that a book should be selling widely when its contents are so rapidly becoming out of date." The present work is divided into eighteen chapters, ~ z . :
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I. Introduction-the 11. 111. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII.
theory of the action of synthetic drugs. The effect of various elements and radicles. The chemical changes of drugs in the organism. Narcotics and general anesthetics. Antipyretics and analgesics. (Derivatives of aniline and phenylhydraziue.) Alkaloids. Atropine and the tropeines--cocaine and the local ane.;thetics. ~~~Morphine and the isoquinoline group of alkaloids. Ergot, adrenaline, and other derivatives of ethylamine. The hormones and vitamines. Derivatives of phenol (antiseptics and anthelmintics). Other organic antiseptics excluding halogen compounds. Halogen compounds. Inorganic antiseptics and metallic compounds. Compounds of arsenic, antimony, and bismuth. Purine derivatives (diuretics) and other uric acid diminants. Purgatives and other substances Ucting on the gastrointestinal tract. Various other compounds of interest.
It will be quite especially to those interested in medicinal chemistry, that i t is impossible to deal adequately and completely in three hundred fifty pages with the subjects indicated. In fact, the crying need in this field is a more comprehensive work, written and patterned somewhat after Gilman's ORGANIC CHEMISTRY but dealing more specificallywith the chemistry of things medicinal. Not only is there incompleteness in May's fourth edition, but some will object to what has been sacrificed a t the expense of much material which has been included. For example, the first three chapters (forty-two pages), which attempt to set forth the general principles of the relationship between structure and physiological activity, contain not a single bibliographical reference that is less than thirty years old. I t is true that this book makes no pretense of giving a complete bibliography, and yet, especially since the authors regretted that the eighteen-year old third edition "should be selling widely when its contents are so rapidly becoming out of date," one expects basic conceptions t o be modified in the light of recent developments. Or have we really made so little progress in this line that the wark of the past thirty years may be practically ignored! For the remainder of the book approximately eighty-five per
cent. of the references are prior to 1920, while less than six per cent. are later than 1927 (Dyson wrote his CHEMOTHERAPY in 1928). I t may be unfair to criticize the b w k because of its incomplete and somewhat ancient bibliography, but it is unfortunate that no mention is made of such recently developed items as, say, derivatives of thiobarbituric acid, local anesthetics of the piperidine type, neo-synephrin, merthiolate, and so forth. The reader will be struck, for example, by the little attention given to developments in the United States. The authors presumably were oblivious of NEWAND NON-ORPICIAL REMEDIES, the annual publication of the American Medical Association, which serves chemists on this side of the Atlantic as a partial, conservative index to progress and advance in medicinal chemistry. Indeed, in the preface we read: "The manufacture of synthetic organic chemicals on a large scale presents many difficult problems, and it is gratifying t o 6nd that most of these have been overcome successfully by British chemists." Such an attitude may explain, among other things, why Thompson's name is not linked with the discovery of ergometrine (page 168), or why only passing mention is given t o the excellent wark now being carried out a t Virginia on drug addiction (page 141) or to Williams' synthesis of vitamin B, (page 196). But it does not excuse the authors for various other editorial sins, such as, for example, completely ignoring Lamson's wark on anthelmintics, for including the wrong structural formula far vitamin E (page 206), nor for erroneously stating (page 179) that in compounds of the epinephrine type "A phenolic hydroxyl group in the 3 position is about as active as in the 4 position. . I n spite of such obvious deficiencies, the book deserves to be read; although i t lacks completeness, it does contain much valuable information and presents an additional survey of the subject matter. The printing is excellent, and the errors are few. On page 123 appears a mistake in the empirical formula for beta-borocaine; on page 295 Loevenhart's name is misspelled while in the formula for dharsqpd f i e aromatic ring should be attached to thcnitrogen. In the diction, which is generally of high quality, one "Americanism" was observed (page 212) where it is stated that "None of these compounds were suitable.. . ." WALTERH. HARTUNC
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INTROD~CTORY COLLEGECHEMISTRY.H. N. Holrnes. Oberlin College. Third Edition. The Macmillan Co., New York City, 1939. viii f 619 pp. 171 figs. 14.5 X 21 cm. $3.50. Although the preface begins with the statement that this text has been written for the teacher who wants a book somewhat shorter and less difficult than theauthor's GENERAL CHEM~STRY. the difference between the two seems almost microscopic. The further implication that this text is as well suited to those who have had a preparatory course in chemistry as to those who are meeting the subject the first time is hardly warranted. The reviewer has yet t o see the textbook which fulfills that spechication. INTRoDucroRY COLLEGE CHEMISTRY is. from many angles, a thoroughly good book for the beginner. It is g a e r d in its scope and treatment, human in its interest and appeal, and balanced in its emphasis and choice of material. Its rather lengthy sections on organic chemistry, food and nutrition, photochemistry and nuclear reactions take i t out of a class with the narrower texts on purely inorganic chemistry and make it particularly suitable for the general student whose formal introduction to the subject will not likely go beyond the first year. I t is in no sense a "scholarly" work. Its language is not pedantic; on the contrary colloquialisms are frequent. There are, of
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