THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 25 



Thomas F. Main: — Concerning- the fourth resohition which 

 reads: — "That standards for drugs of vegetable origin be based 

 only on fair average cjuaHties and formulas for preparations be 

 adjusted to same," I wish to say that the tendency in the last 

 revision of the Pharmacopoeia was to make the standard for the 

 drugs as high as possible. Many of the gentlemen who served on 

 the Committee of Revision, were professors in colleges of phar- 

 macy. Colleges of pharmacy, of course, draw their samples from 

 the wholesale drug trade, and it is a natural thing for one of you 

 gentlemen, upon receiving an order for ten pounds of belladonna 

 leaves for samples for the college of ])harmacy in your district, 

 to give orders to have your stock man send leaves of the very best 

 selection to serve as specimens for the students. The result is that 

 these samples, in a good many cases, assay a good deal better 

 than the average run would do, and, as was pointed out in the full 

 report of our committee, the crops of drugs are mostly wild — very 

 few cultivated — and we know how widely the cereals, for instance, 

 dififer in value from year to year, and wild crops differ still more, 

 and in the opinion of your committee it is much better to take a 

 fair average standard for these vegetable drugs, and if it was con- 

 sidered necessary the quantity of those used in any given formula 

 could be increased, and we could more readily come up to the 

 requirements of the Pharmacopoeia in that way than by adopting 

 an apparently impossible standard for the crude drug. 



Mr. Plaut: — I move the adoption of the report of the Board of 

 Control as presented. (Motion seconded and carried.) 



President Carter: — Would it not be well to have a special com- 

 mittee appointed to present our credentials and these resolutions 

 to the Pharmacopoeia convention? 



Mr. Main: — We, as an association, not being incorporated, are 

 not entitled to representation in the Pharmacopoeia convention. 

 A number of our members have been elected delegates from the 

 State Pharmaceutical societies, or the colleges of pharmacy, and 

 they can better present the views of this Association to that body 

 than if we voluntarily attempt to send a committee to appear be- 

 fore them. These gentlemen have the right to the floor and as 

 members of our organization they can present our views better than 

 if we appoint a special committee to do any such thing. 



