PUBLISHED BY THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 

 OF THE COLLEGE OF PHARMACY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 



botanical 

 Garden. 



Vol. III. 



New York, June, 1896. 



No. 6. 



JOINT PHARHACOLOQICAL INVESTIGATIONS BY THE AHERICAN HEDICAL 



ASSOCIATION AND THE AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION* 



By H. H. RusBV, M. D. 



When one examines the pharmacologi- before performing their own portion, so 

 cal portions of the many ponderous that the same work has been duplicated 

 volumes composing the index to the over and over again, and in such a way 

 surgeon -general's library, and those of as not only to fail of confirming or re- 

 the index medicus, by which the former futing or of supplementing conclusions 

 has been succeeded, remembering that a already reached, but in very many in- 

 very large part of pharmaceutical litera- stances of unnecessarily and mischiev- 

 ture is not here represented, the convic- ously coming into conflict with them, 

 tion is forced upon him that our knowl- This charge against investigators is fully 

 edge of the practical utility of medicinal and eloquently sustained by the small 

 plants is small beyond all reasonable subscription list of the i7idex medicus for 

 comparison with the amount of time many years past — throughout its entire 

 that has been bestowed upon their study, history in fact. No class is more culpable 

 This fact is not difficult to explain, at for this neglect than medical editors, 

 least in part. It is largely due to the whose duty of criticising and weeding 

 method, or rather want of method, which out contributions on these lines has been 

 has prevailed, by which partial investiga- almost utterly neglected. This again is 

 tionshad been made by individuals with- in a large degree due to the great num- 

 out regard to their relation to the compli- ber of medical journals, run almost con- 

 mentary parts; these being left undone, fessedly for the most part as advertising 

 the part performed remaining unutilized sheets, and recognizing quantity with 

 and becoming finally buried and for- little regard to quality in the contributed 

 gotten. This neglect has been made matter, 

 farther operative by the habit of investi- 

 gators of failing to search the work of 

 previous investigators in the same lines 



*Read before the joint section on materia medica and 

 therapeutics at the Atlanta meeting of the American 

 Medical Association. 



