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Ruschenberger. | 434. [Feb. 15, 
proceedings of the Society though he was occasionally present 
at its meetings. 
As already stated, he was an active and prominent member 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, but all his time was not 
given to it. He labored most earnestly in another institution, 
the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, with which his career 
was so closely associated, that, to understand it clearly, a state- 
ment of the circumstances which attended the origin and pro- 
gress of the College seems necessary. 
A National Convention of Physicians assembled at Wash- 
ington, D. C., January 1, 1820, for the purpose of devising a 
code of formulas, and establishing it as the sole standard for 
medicinal preparations. The object was to have them made 
exactly alike in composition and strength by all physicians and 
apothecaries throughout the land. 
At that period the London, the Edinburgh, the Dublin and 
other pharmacopceias were recognized authorities in the United 
States. Their directions were not alike. Therefore, as every 
apothecary followed the standard he considered best, officinal 
preparations of the same name, found in the shops, differed 
from each other just as the standards differed. The composi- 
tion and potency of the physician’s prescription were contin- 
gent, in an important degree sometimes, upon the pharmaco- 
poeia followed by the apothecary who dispensed it. 
It is obvious that the interest of both patients and physicians 
required that these several authorities should be superseded by 
a single standard. ‘To attain this end, to establish a permanent 
authority in the premises, and obtain for it general confidence 
and respect everywhere in the United States, it was determined 
that a national convention composed of delegates from the 
medical colleges and incorporated medical societies of the 
country should be convened every tenth year; that each dele- 
gation should be invited to submit to the convention a report 
of suggested amendments to the work; that from the reports 
presented the convention, through the agency of a select com- 
mittee appointed for the purpose, should compile and publish 
a revised edition of the Pharmacopceia every ten years. An 
