46  American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  {^'v^x'^xm^' 
for  technical  use  only,  and  was  marketing  another  quality  seven  or 
eight  times  the  price,  as  being  of  U.S. P.  grade.  So  far  as  he  could 
learn  retail  druggists  were  still  buying  the  ordinary  quality  of  mag- 
nesium carbonate  for  pharmaceutical  uses. 
The  subject  was  further  discussed  by  Messrs.  Vanderkleed,  Turner, 
Kraemer,  Bernegau,  Wilbert,  Cliffe,  Stanislaus  and  Pearson,  also  by 
Drs.  Stewart  and  Miller. 
At  the  suggestion  of  Professor  Remington,  the  Executive  Com. 
mittee  was  instructed  to  consider  the  advisability  of  securing  a 
larger  hall  for  the  next  meeting,  which  is  to  be  devoted  to  a  discus- 
sion on  "  Nostrums  and  Newspaper  Advertisements." 
M.  I.  Wilbert, 
Secretary. 
DECEMBER  MEETING. 
The  stated  meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American 
Pharmaceutical  Association,  held  on  the  evening  of  Tuesday, 
December  3,  1907,  was  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  nostrums  and 
newspaper  advertisements. 
Dr.  John  H%  Musser  discussed  the  "  Evil  Influences  of  Mystery, 
in  Therapeutic  Agents,  upon  the  Science  of  Medicine,"  and  made  a 
strong  plea  for  the  elimination  of  all  mystery,  and  falsehood  from 
the  practice  of  medicine.    (See  page  26.) 
Dr.  John  B.  Roberts,  in  discussing  the  physician's  breach  of 
trust — the  use  of  secret  remedies,  asserted  that  the  trust  and  confi- 
dence of  the  public  in  the  physician,  is  truly  phenomenal  and  it 
would  appear  as  though  it  must  be  the  primal  duty  of  one  who 
represents  himself  as  a  healer  of  the  sick,  that  he  fully  knows  what 
he  essays  to  do.  The  physician  who  does  not  fully  live  up  to  this 
requirement,  and  particularly  the  prescriber  of  secret  nostrums,  is 
a  dangerous  quack,  and  is  more  to  be  shunned  than  the  charlatan 
who  has  never  had  the  advantage  of  medical  training. 
Dr.  Henry  W.  Cattell,  in  a  paper  entitled,  "  The  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  composition  of  medicines  prescribed  by  physicians  is 
demanded,"  asserted  that  this  requirement  was  axiomatic  and 
referred  not  alone  to  the  composition  and  uses  of  proprietary 
remedies,  but  of  all  remedies  used  in  the  treatment  of  disease. 
He  believes  that  the  one  predominating  reason  for  the  wide 
spread  use  of  nostrums  by  physicians,  is  the  fact  that  materia 
