Chemical cmd Physical Papers. 193 



under this article in the Pharmacopoeia, the ofiPender now claims 

 that, inasmuch as the law contains the phrase "as determined 

 by tests laid down therein" ("therein" meaning in the Pharma- 

 copoeia), no other tests can be legally applied to prove that it is 

 adulterated. Now such a defense has not as yet been submitted to 

 a higher court, but we are told that the best legal opinion is to the 

 effect that this defense is good and sufficient. Should this prove 

 to be correct, then the spirit of the law is certainly evaded; for, 

 although the Pharmacopoeia does not give a special test for the 

 adulterant, it is nevertheless found to be adulterated, and as the 

 Pharmacopoeia cannot practically provide for every possible adul- 

 teration, then the failure to do this makes the practice of adultera- 

 tion possible, and that particular form of adulteration which is not 

 mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia may be practiced ad libitum. It 

 may be said that a defendant is entitled to the strict interpretation 

 of the act itself, but if such interpretation is going to defeat the 

 very object of the law, namely, to prevent adulteration, then cer- 

 tainly the law should be changed. 



The United States Pharmacopoeial Committee of Revision is 

 now taking into consideration all such problems, and it has a great 

 task before it to make the food-and-drugs law of real service to the 

 people. But it stands to reason that the law itself, if, by its strict 

 interpretation as it now reads, can protect any form of adulteration, 

 should be changed in such a way that the law should read, in con- 

 nection with the phrase above alluded to, namely, "as determined 

 by the tests laid down therein," somewhat as follows: "A proof of 

 adulteration may be established if the drug does not respond to the 

 tests for the genuine, authentic material as described in the U. S. P., 

 and if any test of the Pharmacopoeia or other chemical tests show the 

 presence of any adulterant." In such a case we have here what we 

 may consider as a positive test, namely, a test which identifies the 

 genuine material, and what we may call a negative test — one which 

 shows the presence of material that is not the genuine article. Either 

 or both of these may be applied to detect the adulterants. 



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