THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



55 



these men may be, they cannot possibly 

 have the wide and varied experience of 

 the aggregate of the men who attend 

 this Conference. I would, therefore, 

 venture to urge thoughtful pharmacists 

 to contribute papers to this Conference, 

 and I should like them to come in such 

 numbers that we may be compelled to 

 add another day or two to our meeting. 



I mentioned jnst now the friends whom 

 whom we have met at these Conference 

 meetings, and before I close I must 

 briefly allude to those we have lost. 

 The first name that will occur to you, I 

 am sure, is that of our genial botanist, 

 the late Professor Bentley, who was presi- 

 dent at Nottingham in 1866 and Dundee 

 in 1867. Many of us knew him first and 

 best at Bloomsbury Square aa our dear 

 and honored teacher, but to many others 

 the Conference must have been the means 

 of their meeting him, and by all was he 

 respected and beloved. He reached a 

 good ripe age, and of him it might be 

 said — as of many other men who have 

 lived and been true to themselves and 

 their calling — "He has done his work 

 well and earned his rest." The next, an 

 even greater loss to us as a Conference, 

 because of his younger age and the prom- 

 ise there was in him of greater achieve- 

 ments for pharmacy, is our late treasurer, 

 Mr. R. H. Davies, I, with many others, 

 made his acquaintance through this Con- 

 ference, and I feel, as I am sure many of 

 you do, that I have lost a personal friend 

 with whom intimacy would have ripened 

 jyear by year into stronger bonds. 



OFFICINAL OR OFFICIAL. 



In the Pharmaceutisclie Rundschau for 

 January, 1895, is found an interesting 

 discussion on the use of the words offi- 

 cinal and official by Theodore Husemann, 

 of Gbttingen, and Charles Rice, of New 

 York. It would be interesting to our 

 readers to give the views of both of these 

 well-known writers in full. At present, 

 however, we reprint in full the views of 

 Dr. Rice : 



"In compliance with a request by the 

 editor of this journal, the writer presents 

 a few facts, as well as his personal views, 

 regarding the use of the words "of- 



ficial " and " officinal " when applied to 

 drugs and medicinal preparations. 



It should be stated at the outset that 

 the writer accepts the ordinary deriva- 

 tion of the two words, and the meanings 

 assigned to them in accordance with their 

 origin. Nor does he deny that it has 

 been customary, up to within a few de- 

 cades, to apply the English word "of- 

 ficinal " quite generally in the sense of 

 "pharmacopoeial." Yet, within the mem- 

 ory of most readers of the Rundschau, 

 voices arose in favor of a change, the 

 word "official" being proposed to re- 

 place "officinal" in the special sense of 

 " pharmacopoeial." It is evident that 

 some cause arose which produced the 

 feeling that such a change was necessary 

 and the cause is not far to seek. In those 

 countries in which the exercise of phar- 

 macy is under the control of the govern- 

 ment, and where the stock of a phar- 

 macist, so far as it is used in physicians' 

 prescriptions, contains comparitively few 

 remedies besides those directed by the 

 Pharmacopoeia, the two meanings of the 

 word "officinal," viz: 1, the original 

 one ' ' pertaining to an ' offieina ; ' per- 

 taining to or kept in a drug store," and, 

 2, the more modern one, "pharmaco- 

 poeial ; authoritative," practically cover 

 each other. This is particularly the 

 case in Germany, where the word " of- 

 ficinell," and in France, where " offici- 

 nal " is in general use in the second 

 sense mentioned above. It is different 

 in this country, where the pharmacist is 

 compelled to carry a large stock of non- 

 pharmacopoeial preparations, many of 

 which are prescribed by ph) sicians. 



The two meanings of the word "offi- 

 inal" have two widely differing bound- 

 aries. They may be likened to two con- 

 centric circles. In the first mentioned 

 sense ("kept in a drug store") the w^rd 

 occupies the area of the larger circle ; in 

 the second sense ("pharmacopoeial") 

 usually that of the inner, smaller circle. 

 In some parts of this country the inner 

 circle — to continue the simile— is much 

 smaller in proportion to the outer than 

 in others. In some it may attain an 

 area of perhaps three-fourths or four- 

 fifths of the larger ; in others it may 

 even outgrow the former outer circle. 

 Only in rare cases will the peripheries of 



