PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. — SUB-SECTION, PHARMACY. 145 



ills whole time to study aud analytical work, it is an absolute 

 impossibility for him to guard against all the pit-falls that arise in the 

 selection of crude material, and the accurate manufacture of galenicals. 

 Not only has the advancement of science sho'w'Ti what we ought to have 

 and how to find it, but what we ought not to have, and the publication 

 of these required natural principles, and the explanation of methods 

 of detecting unexpected adulterants, has given the sophisticator his 

 opportunity of cunningly hiding his adulteration, so that his product 

 will pass the latest published t ests . Empirical standards by independent 

 and sometimes over-zealous workers are being frequently set up, 

 suggested without the adequate amount of work necessary to establish 

 them, so that the amount of analytical detail and forethought required 

 before a final conclusion is arrived at is enormous, and requires a 

 specially trained mind, untrammelled with the consideration of daily 

 commerce, to unravel. 



Ultimately, therefore, the actual control of the great bulk of the 

 medicine consumed by the public is in the hands of the Avholesale dealer 

 and manufacturer. In orc^er to secure this control, a staff of scientists 

 is employed where the specialized training and knowledge of various 

 experts, each in their own branch of science, is co-ordinated and 

 associated with the knowledge of commercial possibilities and require- 

 ments in the possession of the house they work for. 



The material investigated divides itself into four classes : — 



(a) Crude vegetable material (roots, barks, leaves, &c., and their 



preparations). 

 (6) Essential oils, 

 (c) Fixed oils and waxes. 

 {d) Chemicals and synthetic products. 



Class "A " {Crude Vegetable Material) may be subdivided into three 

 groups — 



(1) Where the active principles are unknown, and the specific 

 therapeutic action such that they do not lend themselves to definite 

 physiological tests — for example, gentian and the simple bitters. Here 

 an examination of the physical characteristics — colour, shape, odour, 

 &c. — is generally sufficient, supplemented where necessary with micro- 

 scopical examination. Estimation of the extractive matter is often a 

 useful check, and this estimation is commonly employed in the examina- 

 tion of the preparations of this group of drugs before they are passed 

 into stock. 



(2) Where the exact active principles are unknown, but where the 

 potency of the drug demands a physiological estimation, as in digitalis 

 and other heart tonics, ergot, &c. In this connexion I would like to 

 emphasize a distinction between physiological standardization and 

 physiological estimation. The Pharmacopoeia is the only authority 



