THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



131 



related work done by the members of the 

 section. 



The writer would therefore suggest 

 that the President-elect of the American 

 Pharmaceutical Association should ap- 

 point the chairman of the delegation 

 during the session of the American 

 Pharmaceutical Association at which he 

 is elected, and that that chairman should 

 proceed immediately to act with the 

 President in making up a list of dele- 

 gates. The chairman should then at 

 once confer with the chairman of this 

 section in regard to undertaking one or 

 more definite pharmacological investiga- 

 tions, to occupy one or more members of 

 each of the contributing bodies. The 

 members to do the work should be 

 selected, and after acceptance should 

 place themselves in correspondence with 

 one another for carrying out the work in 

 a manner calculated to reach some 

 definite and completed result. 



An instance of failure in such an at- 

 tempt in the case of the present meeting 

 will illustrate the principle involved. It 

 was the desire of the writer to have the 

 subject of the Viburnum barks investi- 

 gated. A thorough chemical study of 

 V. prunifolium was first to be made and 

 the constituents isolated in sufficient 

 quantity to admit of physiological ex- 

 periment by some member of this section. 

 The active constituent or constituents 

 being thus determined, the related 

 species were to be examined with refer- 

 ence to the possession of such constitu- 

 ents, as well as of others, so that a just 

 conclusion could be reached as to their 

 claims for recognition by the pharmaco- 

 pceia, and, if recognized, then as to their 

 recognition separately or under one defi- 

 nition. When the attempt was made to 

 put this plan into execution, it was found 

 impossible to complete the work in time 

 for the meeting, though this would have 

 been possible had it been started at the 



beginning of the preceding year. There 

 is no reason why such a plan of work by 

 the proposed method should not run 

 through two or more years, if its comple- 

 tion in one year were found impracti- 

 cable. 



The writer believes that important 

 practical results would follow the adop- 

 tion of this plan or some modification 

 thereof. 



Why Latin is Used. — The New York 

 Herald publishes the following reply to the 

 query why doctors use latin in writing their 

 prescriptions, instead of English: — 



In the first place, Latin is a more exact and 

 concise language than English, and being a 

 dead language, does not change, as all living 

 languages do. 



Then, again, since a very large number of all 

 drugs in use are botanical, they have in the phar- 

 macopseia the same names that they hive in 

 botany — the scientific names. Two-thirds of 

 such drugs have not any English names, and 

 so could not be written in English. 



But suppose a doctor did write a prescription 

 in English for an uneducated patient. The 

 patient reads it, thinks he remembers it, and so 

 tries to get it filled from memory the second 

 time. Suppose, for instance, it called for iodide 

 of potassium and he gets it confused with cyan- 

 ide of potassium. He could safely take a num- 

 ber of grains of the first, but one grain of the 

 second would kill him. 



That is an extreme case, but it will serve for 

 an illustration. Do not you see how the Latin is 

 a protection and a safeguard to the patient ? 

 Prescriptions in Latin he cannot read, and con- 

 sequently does not try to remember. Latin is 

 a language that is used by scientific men all 

 the world over, and no other language is. You 

 can get a Latin prescription filled in any coun- 

 try on the face of the earth where there is a 

 drug store. 



We had a prescription here the other day 

 which we had put up originally, and which had 

 been stamped by druggists in London, Paris, 

 Berlin, Constantinople, Cairo and Calcutta. 

 What good would a prescription written in En- 

 glish be in St. Petersburg? 



To MIX Balsam Peru with oils, first mix with 

 a little Castor Oil, after which any other fixed 

 oil easily combines. 



