10 
3. Additions . — There are 117 additions in the Eighth Decennial 
Revision of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia; among these are representatives 
of all classes of drugs. There is, for instance, a larger number of 
synthetic remedies than ever before. The principles involved in the 
pharmacopoeial terminology of these have already been discussed. 
The active principles of a number of drugs have been admitted; this 
permits of more accurate dosage and their use obviates the necessity 
of administering inert and often undesirable constituents of the crude 
drug. New salts of well-known drugs have been admitted on account 
of their greater stability or solubility. Inasmuch as the discover}^ of 
diphtheria antitoxin is perhaps the greatest achievement in therapeutics 
in the last quarter of a century, the Serum AntidipKthericum is a very 
notable addition to the Pharmacopoeia; not only is this substance made 
official but a definite American standard for it has been fixed. 
A class of additions deserving careful consideration by the medical 
profession is represented b} r certain of those combinations of well- 
known drugs which in recent years have become popular with 
physicians and also with the laity. Some of these preparations are 
extensively sold under various trade names, and the manufacturers 
have not alwaj^s made public their constituents; the same name is 
sometimes applied by different manufacturers to different combina- 
tions. Recognizing the demand for such preparations a number of 
them have been admitted into the Pharmacopoeia, and the proportions 
of the ingredients fixed, thereby giving physicians the opportunity of 
securing uniform preparations, the constituents of which are of known 
strength and purity. 
The introduction of these various preparations reduces to a very 
small number those extra-pharmacopceial drugs which the conserva- 
tive, well-informed physician will desire to prescribe. There are 
undoubted^ a few drugs not in the Pharmacopoeia which many phy- 
sicians have found to be of distinct value; most of these are protected 
by patents and could not be admitted under the rules formulated by 
the Pharmacopoeial Convention. The pharmacopoeial preparations, 
however, will in most cases meet the needs of physicians who are 
accustomed to consider carefully the chemical nature and the physio- 
logical action of a drug before they venture to use it, and who know 
how rarel} T a distinctly new drug with real advantages over those 
already in use is discovered. 
Assay processes . — A noteworthy feature of the revised Pharma- 
copoeia, and one which places it at the head of the pharmacopoeias of 
the world in this respect, is the introduction of a large number of 
assay processes for important drugs of vegetable origin. An exami- 
nation of the tables given in this bulletin (pp. 65-66) will show that 
standards of strength and methods for confirming them have been 
