46 Kansas Academy of Science. 



from the first two classes. The chemical substances in the first 

 class number about 300, and practically all of them are required to 

 conform to certain prescribed chemical and physical requirements. 

 The substances included in the second class, numbering about 240, 

 are practically all accurately described, and about 50 of them have, 

 in addition, a chemical method of valuation. In the third division, 

 the preparations, there are 34 classes, which comprise 413 formulas. 

 In 21 of these classes there is no attempt at standardization or de- 

 scription of any kind. In the remaining 13 classes there are 40 

 preparations for which there are volumetric assays, 17 preparations 

 for which there are gravimetric assays, 1 preparation gasometric- 

 ally assayed, and 18 preparations for which there are qualitative 

 tests for purity only. This leaves 337 preparations in the phar- 

 macopoeia, or more than 80 per cent, of them, without any oflficial 

 description, definition, or standard. 



The federal pure food and drug law which goes into effect Jan- 

 uary 1, 1907, states that drugs, and these are defined in the broadest 

 sense of the term, so as to include, "all medicines and preparations 

 recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formu- 

 lary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of 

 substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation or pre- 

 vention of disease of either man or other animals" — it states that 

 these drugs "shall be deemed adulterated if, sold under or by a 

 name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National 

 Formulary, they differ from the standard of strength, purity or 

 quality as determined by the test laid down in the United States 

 Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary ofiicial at the time of in- 

 vestigation." Provision is made whereby these drugs may not be 

 considered adulterated, provided they are properly labeled with 

 reference to their quality. The National Formulary referred to is 

 purely a book of formulas, without any so-called tests, either 

 chemical or physical. Its formulas, 570 in number, are thus added 

 to those of the pharmacopoeia, making a total of 983 preparations, 

 of which 907, or more than 92 per cent., are unstandardized. 



The analysis of the preparations is by far the most difficult of 

 the three classes of pharmacopoeial substances, and it is here that 

 the analyst who is not a trained pharmacist as well as an expert 

 chemist needs to display the greatest caution, for surely the man 

 without experience in putting these different drugs together is a 

 poor judge of how to take them apart in a way to show whether the 

 oflficial formulas have been properly compounded or not, 



The mere fact that a tincture which is prepared by extracting a 

 given drug with diluted alcohol is found to be of lower alcoholic 



