TESTS FOR IMPORTANT MEDICINAL PREPARATIONS. 565 
throughout the country, with a view of ascertaining the fre- 
quency or otherwise of the several substances or compounds 
in the list. Other questions have been issued, to elicit in- 
formation on special subjects. The Committee has also met 
regularly, and considered seriatim the comparative merits of 
the formulae and processes, in the order in which they occur 
in the Pharmacopoeias. This revision, however, is not yet 
completed. 
“The above remarks are founded on the supposition that 
the existing Pharmacopoeias will be taken as the basis of the 
forthcoming work. Although the Medical Council, having 
absolute power, could, if so disposed, commence de novo dis- 
carding conventional formulae and compounds already in use, 
such course of proceeding is not very probable, nor would it 
be politic, as the present race of physicians and surgeons will 
continue to prescribe those preparations w 7 hich experience 
has led them to consider efficacious; and even the authority 
of an Act of Parliament could not induce practitioners of 
thirty or forty years’ standing to discard their favorite reme- 
dies, go to school again, and learn a new system of prescrib- 
ing. The object to be desired is the simplification of the 
Pharmacopoeia, the exclusion of such articles as experience 
has shown to be worthless, the addition of a few new prepa- 
rations recently introduced, and now in common use, and 
the attainment of uniformity in the strength and composition 
of preparations used under the same name in different parts 
of the United Kingdom. In the introduction of any new 
preparations, care should be taken that the names should not 
be confounded w 7 ith those of any other preparations; and it 
is especially important to avoid any attempt to adapt the 
nomenclature of chemical compounds to the fashion of the 
day, which in chemical science, as in costume, varies con- 
tinually, and w T ould, if introduced into the Pharmacopoeia, 
cause endless doubt and misunderstanding between the pre- 
scriber and the dispenser, to the serious inconvenience and 
danger of the patient.” 
SIMPLE TESTS EOR SOME IMPORTANT MEDICINAL 
PREPARATIONS. 
By Edward R. Squibb, M.D. 
Th ere is no branch of commerce wherein the competition 
of trade is more rapidly and more certainly tending to dete- 
xxxi. 75 
