l62 



NATURE 



[April 7, 192 1 



factor, and this cannot be tested except biologic- 

 ally. During the war, on account of difficulties 

 with imported salvarsan and its analogues, 

 special provision was made for testing and stand- 

 ardisation. The Medical Research Council under- 

 took the necessary work, and the history of the 

 uses of salvarsan and its substitutes is one of the 

 most striking chapters in the records of the war. 

 What the war started this Committee proposes to 

 continue. 



Standardisation, therefore, of biological products 

 and of the more dangerous chemical toxic drugs 

 is loudly called for. As early as 1909 the General 

 Medical Council approached the Government with 

 the suggestion for "the establishment of a public 

 institution for the pharmacological standardisation 

 of potent drugs and of serums." The Medical Re- 

 search Council within the last few years has 

 actually carried out a certain amount of standard- 

 isation. The recommendations of Sir Mackenzie 

 Chalmers's Committee are really only giving effect 

 to views accepted both by scientific experts and by 

 scientific manufacturers. The primary recom- 

 mendations are that such products as we have 

 named should be subject to supervision and con- 

 trol ; that the controlling authority should be the 

 committee of the Privy Council which at present 

 controls the Medical Research Council ; that this 

 committee should decide from time to time what 

 substances are to be brought under control and 

 prescribe the methods of standardisation and 

 testing ; that the controlling authority should have 

 to assist it an advisory committee representative 

 of the different sections of the kingdom, as well as 

 of the Navy and Army, the General Medical Coun- 

 cil, the Medical Research Council, and the Pharma- 

 ceutical Society ; that there should be a central 

 laboratory under the management of the Medical 

 Research Council for the preparation and main- 

 tenance of standards and the testing of market 

 products ; that control should include the licensing 

 of manufacturers, the inspection of plant, prem- 

 ises, and processes, and the testing of the finished 

 products; that the primary responsibility for see- 

 ing that products conform to standard should lie 

 with the manufacturers ; that test samples should 

 be taken from time to time, and also that manu- 

 facturers should be required on occasion and for a 

 period to furnish samples of every batch of a sub- 

 stance made. It is also suggested that imported 

 products of the same order should be admitted 

 only by licence, and subjected to equal tests. 



In these recommendations and in the argument 

 justifying them we find nothing that should inter- 

 ,NO. 2684, VOL. 107] 



fere illegitimately with the well-established 

 methods of private enterprise. Indeed, the Com- 

 mittee, in its recommendations, has the support 

 of the leading manufacturing firms, which, with 

 certain slight qualifications, welcome appro- 

 priate inspection and standardisation. The draft 

 Bill embodies the recommendations in a workable 

 form. It may require modification in detail, but 

 in principle it seems adequate. It combines a 

 sufficiency of central control with the minimum of 

 trade restriction. 



British Dyestuffs Corporation. 



THE situation in which the directorate of the 

 British Dyestuffs Corporation finds itself is 

 a remarkable one. At the registration of this com- 

 pany in May, 1919, as a result of amalgamating 

 British Dyes, Ltd., of Huddersfield, with Messrs. 

 Levinstein, Ltd., of Blackley, the appointment of 

 Sir Joseph Turner as commercial managing 

 director, and of Dr. Herbert Levinstein as tech- 

 nical managing director, was designed to main- 

 tain the interests of both groups, and to benefit 

 the united enterprise by the special contribution of 

 knowledge and experience which each of these 

 gentlemen was expected to make. At the meeting 

 of shareholders in Manchester on Friday last it 

 was announced that Sir Joseph Turner and Dr. 

 Levinstein, while retaining their seats on the 

 board, have been superseded as managing 

 directors by Sir Henry Birchenough, the chair- 

 man of the corporation. Sir William Alexander, 

 and Mr. Vernon Clay. 



It is no reflection on the new managing directors 

 to express the opinion that the position thus dis- 

 closed must arouse grave misgiving amongst all 

 those who recognise the foundation of a self-sup- 

 porting synthetic dyemaking industry as a matter 

 of the greatest national importance. Disregarding 

 the woeful absence of harmony which appears to 

 be indicated, the aspect of this rearrangement 

 which causes anxiety to chemists is the fact that, 

 at a time when all the scientific knowledge and 

 commercial energy available in this country should 

 be correlated in a concerted effort to establish an 

 industry which, more than any other, depends for 

 success upon the combination of these factors, 

 two of the most experienced practitioners should 

 be removed from very intimate association there- 

 with. 



The proper and perfectly natural request for an 

 investigation put forward by the shareholders met 

 with a cold response from the board, and the 



