88    Microscopic  Examination  of  Vegetable  Drugs.     { A FebruaryTfff* 
should  be  prevented  from  considering  the  scientific  problems  arising 
during  the  course  of  revision  on  their  merits,  or  in  such  a  manner 
as  the  importance  of  the  subject  warrants,  or  the  practice  of  the 
times  demands,  by  reason  of  the  oft-expressed  contention  that  phar- 
macists are  not  educated  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  able  to  make 
use  of  the  knowledge  given,  or  to  appreciate  its  importance.  If, 
however,  it  be  admitted  that  this  contention  is  true,  then  the  ques- 
tion narrows  itself  down  to  this,  that  pharmacopceial  revision  is 
directly  influenced,  or  hindered  from  making  progress,  by  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  pharmacist's  education. 
Whatever  may  have  been  true  of  the  past  certainly  cannot  long 
continue  to  be  true  of  the  future,  for  the  reason  that  the  responsibility 
must  be  directly  assumed  by  the  schools  and  colleges  of  pharmacy 
and  by  the  boards  of  pharmacy.  We  can  therefore  but  trust  that 
this  argument  relating  to  the  pharmacist's  education  will  never 
again  be  raised  in  connection  with  pharmacopceial  revision. 
The  second  argument  when  reduced  to  final  analysis  means  that 
we  are  more  concerned  in  avoiding  prosecutions  and  litigation  than 
in  safe-guarding  the  quality  of  the  drugs  which  the  pharmacist 
handles.  This,  however,  is  a  question  which  is  now  in  the  hands  of 
the  Government,  and  it  would  seem  that  the  sooner  the  Pharmaco- 
poeia recognizes  powdered  drugs  and  modernizes  its  attitude 
toward  the  whole  subject  of  vegetable  drugs,  the  more  weight  and 
authority  it  will  have  as  a  legal  standard.  There  are  some  who 
still  contend  that  drugs  in  the  powdered  or  comminuted  condition 
are  not  official  and  therefore  are  not  required  to  be  subject  to  the 
official  standards.  Technically  there  can  be  no  question  that  both 
crude  and  powdered  drugs  should  conform  to  the  same  standard.  This 
is  true  of  the  foods  and  spices  for  which  the  government  has  estab- 
lished standards.  Furthermore,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out, 
there  are  a  number  of  products  official  in  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia 
which  are  used  for  spices  or  for  flavoring  purposes  for  which  no 
definite  standards  are  given,  while  the  U.  S.  Government  has  adopted 
exact  standards  relating  to  the  quality  of  these  products.  This 
emphasizes  the  desirability  that  the  revisers  of  the  Pharmacopoeia 
take 'advantage  of  scientific  investigation  pertaining  to  every  offi- 
cial product  and  fix  exact  standards  for  them.  In  other  words 
standards  are  fixed  legally  according  to  the  advance  in  our  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  subject. 
