Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  1908. 
Pharmaceutical  Meeting. 
197 
lary  included  fifty-two  elixirs,  and  that  of  the  eighty-eight  formulae 
now  incorporated  in  the  National  Formulary,  possibly  a  dozen  have 
some  slight  merit. 
Professor  Remington  said  that  the  main  object  had  in  mind  in 
making  this  display  of  N.  F.  elixirs  was  to  elicit  detailed  criticism 
of  the  formulae.  He  claimed  that  the  formulae  had  the  advantage  of 
not  being  secret,  and  said  that  the  preparations  were  in  his  opinion 
much  better  as  a  class  than  the  nostrums  which  are  being  or  have 
been  prescribed. 
Mr.  Cliffe  said  that  the  elixir  of  the  glycerophosphates  furnished 
an  exception  to  this  rule,  the  preparation  on  the  market  being  the 
better. 
Mr.  Beringer  said  that  by  looking  over  recent  legislative  acts  it 
will  be  found  that  in  various  States  the  formulae  of  the  U.  S.  Phar- 
macopoeia and  National  Formulary  are  made  absolute.  He  cited 
the  New  Jersey  law  as  an  example,  and  said  that  when  either  an 
U.S.  P.  or  N.  F.  preparation  is  ordered,  the  pharmacist  must  not  vary 
the  formula  in  any  particular,  even  when  he  knows  it  to  be  faulty. 
He,  therefore,  claimed  that  the  law  is  radically  wrong ;  and  said 
that  formerly  when  an  improvement  was  found,  the  pharmacist  was 
free  to  state  it.  He  said  that  he  desired  it  to  be  understood  that  he 
was  not  opposed  to  the  National  Formulary,  particularly  as  it 
was  originally  planned  by  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association. 
One  of  the  criticisms  which  he  offered  related  to  the  formulae 
adapted  from  other  authorities.  He  said  that  if  the  physician  desires 
a  preparation  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia,  the  German  Pharmaco- 
poeia or  the  French  Codex,  he  does  not  get  this  if  he  orders  the 
corresponding  N.  F.  preparation,  as  the  formula  has  been  modified 
so  as  to  give  an  entirely  different  preparation.  He  also  questioned 
the  practice  of  publishing  formulae  to  simulate  those  of  proprietary 
preparations,  claiming  that  the  originators  of  these  formulae  have  in 
many  instances  a  rightful  claim  to  them,  and  of  these  preparations 
he  mentioned  Dieterich's  solution  of  iron.  He  strongly  favored 
an  early  revision  of  the  National  Formulary. 
Mr.  Wilbert  maintained  that  the  reason  the  National  Formulary 
is  faulty  is  not  that  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  is 
unwilling  to  make  improvements,  or  that  the  Committee  are  not 
willing  to  make  improvements,  but  that  the  fault  lies  with  Ameri- 
can pharmacists.    He  alluded  to  the  Apotheker  Verein,  which  main- 
