Professor Wall states in the preface of this volume that "the elementary principles of the Latin language contained in this little book are sufficient to enable the student to read the Latin edition of the German pharmacopoeia, which is as much Latin as is necessary for the pharmaceutical or medical student." He might have added that it is far more than the average student of these professions ever acquires. The majority of pharmaceutical students and many medical students enter college with no training at all in Latin, and in the limited time which can be devoted to this subject in college a knowledge of only a small portion of the grammar can be gained, and the study of Latin is limited to those forms and principles which are absolutely essential to enable the student to understand Latin titles and prescriptions. Professor Wall's treatment of the subject is therefore much more complete than is found in the ordinary textbook on pharmaceutical Latin.
The book is divided into three parts; Part I includes eighty pages and is devoted entirely to the forms and principles of grammar. The verb forms, active and passive, are given in full although all ' tenses of the indicative and subjunctive except the present are placed in an appendix. Many of the irregular verbs are also given and the uses of moods and of the verbal noun and adjective forms are explained. The declension of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives and the rules for their use receive liberal treatment and enough syntax is given to fully justify the author in his statement that knowledge of these principles will enable the student to read the Latin edition of the German pharmacopoeia.
Part II contains the vocabularies and reading exercises. These cover sixty pages. Professor Wall believes that by the separation of the grammar from the exercises and vocabularies the student can more clearly grasp the essentials of the language and escape the' confusion of mind which results from having the grammar, vocabularies and exercises intermixed. Many teachers will not agree with him in his view, believing that forms and constructions are learned more rapidly by constant practice in their use in sentences. In fact the practice of interspersing grammar work among the reading exercise is almost invariably followed by authors of beginners' books in Latin.
Part III, consisting of eight pages, is devoted to a comparison of Latin words with their English derivatives and to a brief study of the formation of words, and is designed to assist the student in acquiring a Latin vocabulary.
No general vocabulary is given, but numerous short vocabularies totaling some nine hundred words are scattered through Part II. Even with these it is necessary for the student "to refer to a dictionary for the meaning of many of the words in the reading exercises." This arrangement of vocabularies does not seem as satisfactory as the method usually followed and the use of a separate lexicon certainly does not tend to a saving of time in the preparation of the lessons. In our opinion the book though containing some good features is hardly likely to displace the Latin textbooks already in use in colleges of pharmacy.
—American Journal of Pharmacy, Vol. 89 [1917]
