THE UNITED STATES PHARMACOPEIA. 279 



THE UNITED STATES PHARMACOPOEIA. 



By H. C. WOOD, M.D., LL.D., 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES PHAKMACOPCEIAL CONVENTION. 



UNDERLYING our civilization, and often very necessary to our 

 daily life, are agencies unrecognized by the general mass of 

 humanity. Among these is a little book known as the ' United States 

 Pharmacopoeia/ It concerns most nearly the medical profession, but 

 perhaps most vitally the general public. Probably four doctors out 

 of five have no clear, correct conception of the Pharmacopoeia, its 

 intent and scope; whilst the ordinary citizen does not know of its 

 existence. I have thought perhaps a short article concerning it might 

 not be uninteresting to the readers of the The Popular Science 

 Monthly, and the concurrence of the editor in this belief has led to the 

 present dictation. 



The Pharmacopoeia is an official standard list of drugs, in which 

 is given so much of their natural history as may be necessary to enable 

 the apothecary to judge of the genuineness and purity of an offered 

 sample, and in which is also given a list of the proper preparations for 

 use of these drugs, with the methods of the making of these prepara- 

 tions. The intent of the Pharmacopoeia is to insure genuineness and 

 purity, proper methods of preparing, and uniformity of strength in 

 the preparations. A common, fallacious belief is that Pharmacopceial 

 recognition means that the drug recognized is of value; the fact is 

 that the United States and other Pharmacopoeias have in them numer- 

 ous drugs of very little use. The nature or motif, so to speak, of a 

 pharmacopoeia is not to distinguish between worthy and worthless 

 drugs, but to see that a drug which is asked for is as sold by the apothe- 

 cary pure, and that proper preparations of uniform strength are made 

 by the apothecary. 



The question which the framers of a pharmacopoeia ask themselves, 

 is not is this drug of value, but is there a demand for it by the pro- 

 fession of medicine? If five thousand doctors in the United States 

 believed brick-dust to be a valuable remedy, and habitually used it, 

 brick-dust would have to go into the pharmacopoeia. Witch-hazel is 

 probably as active and as useful as is brick-dust, but witch-hazel is a 

 fad, and is enormously called for, and so witch-hazel must go into 

 the pharmacopoeia. The pharmacopoeia exists for the purpose of re- 

 quiring the apothecary to give in the first place pure brick-dust or 

 pure witch-hazel when asked for; and in the second place uniform 

 preparations of these remedies. 



Every European country has its own pharmacopoeia, prepared by 



