Am.  Jour.  Pharni.  | 
October,  1908.  )" 
National  Formulary. 
469 
ADJUVANT  PREPARATIONS  AND  COLOR  STANDARDS. 
The  suitability  of  some  of  the  preparations  which  are  largely  used 
as  vehicles  or  for  flavoring  or  similar  purposes  in  the  Formulary 
has  been  questioned  by  different  critics ;  among  such  questions  are 
the  advisability  of  using  saccharin  as  a  sweetening  agent,  the  stability 
of  some  of  the  elixirs,  the  alcoholic  strength  of  some  of  the  elixirs, 
and  the  question  of  unformity  in  color  or  appearance  of  various 
preparations.  These  are  questions  needing  experimental  and  any 
other  evidence  which  may  be  available,  and  each  has  been  treated 
separately  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  special  committee.  One 
committee  has  been  charged  with  the  duty  of  studying  the  coloring- 
agents  and  their  uses,  and  if  practicable,  to  recommend  some  method 
of  standardizing  either  the  coloring  agents  themselves,  or  the  color 
of  the  preparations  in  which  they  are  used. 
Another  committee  has  been  asked  to  devise  basic  elixirs  of 
varying  alcoholic  strength  which  may  be  used  in  place  of  aromatic 
elixir  or  other  bases  when  a  low  alcoholic  content  in  the  finished 
preparations  is  desirable.    Such  for  instance  as  the  bromide  elixir. 
The  third  committee  will  investigate  and  report  upon  the  advisa- 
bility of  using  saccharin  in  National  Formulary  preparations. 
LIBERTIES  TAKEN  WITH  FOREIGN  PHARMACOPOEIAS. 
The  present  Formulary  has  been  criticised  because  of  uncalled 
for  liberties  with  the  formulas  of  the  British,  German  and  French 
Pharmacopoeias  on  the  ground  that  a  preparation  which  is  intended 
to  be  dispensed  as  identical  with  or  similar  to  the  preparation  official 
in  one  of  these  Pharmacopoeias  should  not  be  changed  in  any  way 
from  the  formula  of  that  Pharmacopoeia.  The  deviation  in  such 
formulas  which  have  been  made  in  past  and  present  editions  have 
been  made  for  the  reason  that  ingredients  in  such  preparations  vary 
in  the  different  pharmacopoeias  and  it  is  therefore  often  impracticable 
to  make  a  foreign  preparation  with  the  American  galenicals,  and 
have  it  even  similar  to  the  original  preparation.  It  is  therefore 
necessary  in  many  cases  to  entirely  re-arrange  the  formula  and  thus 
produce  a  preparation  which  for  all  medicinal  purposes  will  take 
the  place  of  the  original  preparation,  but  which  differs  from  it  in 
some  minor  particulars.  Your  Committee  thinks  that  such  liberties 
are  justifiable,  for  the  National  Formulary,  but  does  not  mean  by  this 
that  such  preparations  should  be  dispensed  on  foreign  prescriptions 
