NEWS AND ITEMS. 
795 
the cab horse getting scarcer all the time, the canal mule dis¬ 
appearing, the delivery-wagon horse doomed and the truck 
horse threatened, horse doctoring seems likely to progress into 
the class of elegant and learned, but unremunerative, occupa¬ 
tions which are fitter to attract endowed students than persons 
who expect to earn a living.” 
Standardization of Drugs. —What right has any firm, 
whose business is to furnish the veterinarian with his principal 
weapons, to place upon the market pharmaceutical preparations 
of unknown medicinal value ? Should we not expect, yes, even 
demand, that the producer of fluid extracts make his products 
conform to some standard of excellence—that he shall indicate 
what effects his fluid extracts may be expected to have ere he 
sends them forth from his laboratory ? It has been shown that 
even drugs selected with care vary most extraordinarily in 
their percentage of active principles. Witness, for example, 
this statement by the editor of the Bulletin of PhciTmcicy: 
“ Professor Puckner assayed nineteen samples of belladonna 
leaves procured, mind you, from dealers who were told that 
only the best was wanted, and that purchase would depend 
upon the results of assay. He found these nineteen samples to 
range in alkaloidal content from .01 to .51 per cent.! The 
strongest sample fifty-one times as strong as the weakest.” 
The most careful treatment of such drugs, with the choicest 
menstrua, and by the most approved processes, will yield prep¬ 
arations that may be fair to look upon, but in medicinal value 
they will vary just as much as the crude drugs from which they 
are. made. The compensatory remedy for this unfortunate con¬ 
dition is standardization—chemical standardization when prac¬ 
ticable, and when that method is inadmissible, as it often is, 
physiological standardization. It has been found that certain 
important drugs cannot be assayed chemically, as their medi¬ 
cinal virtues reside in unstable bodies, and these are readily 
decomposed in the analytical processes. For this reason the 
strength of such powerful and useful drugs as digitalis, aconite, 
convallaria, strophanthus, ergot, cannabis Indica and many 
others, cannot be determined satisfactorily by the analytical 
chemist. However, the problem which proved to be an insur¬ 
mountable difficulty to the chemist, was solved by the phar¬ 
macologist with ease. He tests upon living animals all drugs 
that cannot be assayed chemically. Dogs, rabbits, fowls and 
guinea-pigs receive doses of the preparations under examina¬ 
tion. Accurate observations of their physiologic effects are 
