Am.  Jour.  Pharni.  "I 
December,  1908.  J 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
589 
PROGRESS  IN  PHARMACY. 
A  QUARTERLY  REVIEW  OF  SOME  OF  THE  MORE  INTERESTING  LITERATURE 
RELATING  TO  PHARMACY   AND   MATERIA  MEDICA. 
By  M.  I.  Wilbert,  Washington,  D.  C. 
The  meetings  of  pharmacists  and  of  druggists  that  were  held  in 
this  country,  in  Canada  and  in  England,  during  the  past  months, 
again  evidenced  the  altogether  too  well  established  fact  that  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  men  connected  with  the  drug  trade,  in  English 
speaking  countries,  are  altogether  too  apathetic  to  the  progress  that 
is  going  on  about  them.  It  is  true  that  there  is  some  indication  that 
this  apathy  is  gradually  giving  way  to  an  awakening,  by  some, 
to  live  up  to  the  duties  that  are  involved  and  the  responsibilities 
that  are  incurred  by  the  vocation  of  their  choice. 
Compared  with  the  intensity  of  interest  that  is  manifested  by 
the  agricultural  chemist,  or  the  food  and  dairy  commissioners,  the 
interest  that  was  manifested  in  the  science  of  their  calling,  by  Ameri- 
can pharmacists  or  their  English  brethren,  is  not  to  be  commended. 
The  twenty -fifth  annual  convention  of  the  Association  of  Official 
Agricultural  Chemists  was  held  in  the  city  of  Washington,  Novem- 
ber 11  to  14,  1908.  Apart  from  being  an  incentive  to  greater  inter- 
est in  the  science  of  their  own  business,  this  meeting  was  of  par- 
ticular interest  to  pharmacists  in  that  matters  relating  to  drugs  and 
medicines  were  given  an  unusual  amount  of  attention,  while 
pharmacopceial  tests  and  requirements  were  discussed  in  a  way  that 
will  surely  be  helpful  in  the  future  revisions  of  that  book. 
The  shortcomings  of  the  official  assay  methods  were  discussed 
at  some  length  and  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  concordant  results  was 
clearly  evidenced.  The  reports  of  progress  in  several  lines  of  inves- 
tigative work  gave  promise  of  definite  advances  in  the  near  future. 
One  of  the  more  interesting  communications  of  the  series  on  drug's 
and  chemicals  was  a  paper  by  Prof.  Rusby,  who  pointed  out  very 
clearly  the  need  for  a  wider  conception  in  regard  to  the  standards 
for  drugs  and  demonstrated  very  clearly  that  chemical  methods  alone 
were  far  from  being  satisfactory  in  accurately  estimating  the  effi- 
ciency, the  identity  or  the  purity  of  any  given  drug. 
The  First  International  Food  Congress. — L.  M.  Douglas  (Pharni. 
Jour.,  London,  Oct.  3,  1908,  p.  437),  in  discussing  the  several  promi- 
nent features  of  the  first  food  congress,  of  an  international  character, 
points  out  that  the  value  of  any  resolutions  passed  by  this  congress 
