144 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. — SUB-SECTION, PHARMACY. 



its tests are now obsolete, so that conflicting evidence is often given, 

 and the need of more recent standards with an official if not legal 

 authority is badly wanted. 



In America, where the United States Pharmacopceia and National 

 Formulary are legal standards, much confusion — more especially in 

 regard to crude drugs — has arisen, and the amount of litigation and 

 annoyance to importers through the varying interpretation of a par- 

 ticular description, or the accuracy or otherwise of a particular official 

 standard, has proved the enormous difficulty of making what is essen- 

 tially a guide to medical and pharmaceutical practice (the chief object 

 of which is purely a uniformity in medicine) — au absolute legal 

 standard. 



Expert evidence — medical and scientific — is admittedly difficult 

 to reconcile. A doctor or a chemist has his own hobby, and will often 

 ride it to death. His opinion and his evidence, based on his work and 

 his own interpretation of other people's, is often narrow, and it appears 

 to me that the most reasonable method of ensuring the purity of medicine 

 is the Phartnacopoeia, an official standard only between doctor, chemist, 

 and the public, and such regulations as may, from time to time, appear 

 necessary in different localities for the enforcing of that standard, 

 but always with due regard to local conditions, advancement of 

 knowledge, and ordinary common sense. 



I would venture to suggest that the adoption of other text-books 

 (valuable works of reference though they may be) as official standards 

 is not a step in the right direction. It is superfluous where our 

 Pharmacopoeia is up to date, as that work should contain all standards 

 necessary. It also leads to confusion, and it is giving a prominence to 

 the work and opinions of one man or body of men, put forward with no 

 official authority, at the expense of others who may be just as capable 

 of the work. 



Having dealt with the final object of analytical control- — that is, 

 the control of the supply by the pharmacist of " pure " drugs and 

 preparations to the public — the question arises. Can the pharmacist, by 

 his own work, ensure that he is supplying what is required of him — the 

 best ? To a large extent he can. His training and education have all 

 been based on the assumption that he will do so, and have to a great 

 extent fitted him for the work. So far as care in dispensing a pre- 

 ficription — of the proper storing and handling of his more potent 

 medicines, in the selection by sme.ll, colour, shape, or general appear- 

 ance, of his material is concerned — the pharmacist undoubtedly will 

 use every possible care and control. Many make their own preparations, 

 and apply such tests to what they have to buy as will ensure their 

 getting, so far as it is possible for them to judge, the best obtainable. 



But, as was emphasized at the beginning of this paper, scientific 

 knowledge has advanced so far that, unless a man can give practically 



