Am.  Jour.  Pharm."| 
September,  1908.  J 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
443 
denying  the  fact  that  the  merging  of  small,  poorly  equipped  medical 
schools  into  a  much  smaller  number  of  strong,  well-equipped  insti- 
tutions forebodes  a  material  advance  in  the  standards  of  medical 
education. 
The  Consolidation  of  Scio  with  the  Pittsbitvg  College  of  Pharmacy, 
as  recently  announced  in  the  pharmaceutical  and  drug  journals, 
establishes  a  precedent  that  might  be  followed  by  other  colleges  to 
the  material  advantage  of  pharmacy  at  large. 
In  pharmacy,  as  in  medicine,  it  can  no  longer  be  expected  that  the 
schools  can  be  self-sustaining.  In  medicine,  for  instance,  it  has  been 
actually  demonstrated  that  the  annual  expenses  of  the  better 
equipped  schools  readily  amount  to  double  the  amount  paid  for 
tuition  by  the  students.  If  pharmacy  is  to  progress,  as  it  should 
and  must,  practically  the  same  conditions  will  prevail  with  pharma- 
ceutical schools,  thus  making  it  impracticable  if  not  impossible  to 
longer  continue  the  smaller,  unendowed,  colleges  of  pharmacy. 
Food  and  Drug  Standards. — An  international  congress  for  sup- 
pressing adulteration  of  foodstuffs  and  medicines  will  be  held  in 
Geneva,  Switzerland,  in  September.  One  of  the  subjects  for  dis- 
cussion is  a  comparison  of  the  demands  for  purity  made  by  the 
different  Pharmacopoeias,  the  object  being  to  elaborate,  if  prac- 
ticable, generally  acceptable  standards  for  the  more  widely  used 
drugs  and  chemicals.  This  proposed  congress  has  attracted  con- 
siderable attention,  both  in  this  country  as  well  as  abroad,  and  it  is 
confidently  expected  that  the  meetings  will  be  well  attended  and 
that  the  deliberations  will  be  fruitful  of  permanent  results. 
An  Official  Bureau  for  Testing  Pharmaceutical  Products  was 
recommended,  by  Dr.  Eichengriin,  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the 
German  Chemical  Society.  In  calling  attention  to  the  need  for  such 
an  official  bureau  the  reader  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  all  too 
rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  pharmaceutical  preparations  of  a 
proprietary  nature,  and  the  fact  that  the  all  too  frequently  untrue 
and  misleading  statements  that  are  made  regarding  composition  and 
uses,  by  unscrupulous  manufacturers,  would  justify,  if  not  impera- 
tively demand,  supervision  by  some  central  bureau. 
Such  a  general  bureau  must  consider  the  general  interests  of  all 
concerned  and  would  in  no  way  relieve  the  apothecary  or  the  manu- 
facturer of  their  direct  responsibility  for  the  articles  made  or  sold  by 
them.    (Apothek.  Zeifg,  1908,  page  436.) 
