id 
0 
were exactly alike, yet when given to animals or to patients 
one might prove very active and the other entirely inert. 
The only way in which such drugs can be tested is upon 
living animals, i.e., by the physiologic method. As we 
were the first manufacturers to adopt the principle of 
chemical standardization, so also were we the first to work 
out and apply practical methods for physiologically assaying 
drugs not amenable to chemical assay. 
In the current medical press appear utterances like this: 
‘“We are realizing more and more the need of some kind of 
assay for most drugs. It becomes evident that, in some 
cases, ordinary chemical methods do not suffice to give full 
information concerning a drug. The effect of digitalis on 
the frog’s heart or that of ergot on the cock’s comb are 
known to give a truer indication of the therapeutic value of 
these drugs than any isolated chemical test.”’ 
The Pharmacopceia has adopted the principle of chemical 
standardization. _In its eighth revision it requires alkaloidal 
standards of strength for twenty-one drugs. In addition to — 
this it has recognized the physiologic method as the only one 
applicable to antidiphtheric serum, and a committee has been 
appointed to determine how far physiologic assays <i ee 
se adapted to the ninth revision of the U. Ss. Pharmacopeeia. 
We do not restrict mandlardization % to ‘a few drugs; oor 
