594 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharni. 
\   December,  190S. 
rather  than  regulate  the  illicit  traffic  in  noxious  or  habit-forming 
drugs. 
Patent  Medicine  Bill  in  Canada. — The  law  recently  enacted  in 
Canada  to  regulate  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  so-called  patent 
medicines,  embodies  several  features  that  promise  to  be  efficient 
in  controlling  many  of  the  abuses  that  have  arisen  from  the  promis- 
cuous sale  and  use  of  the  more  or  less  harmful  nostrums.  The 
Canadian  law  provides  that  manufacturers  must  secure  a  license 
from  the  Minister  of  Inland  Revenue  and  that  when  a  compound 
contains  one  or  more  of  a  list  of  about  thirty  drugs  the  exact  con- 
tent of  any  of  these  drugs  must  be  furnished.  If  the  quantity  is 
thought  to  be  excessive  or  if  the  mixture  as  a  whole  otherwise 
objectionable,  the  license  is  to  be  withheld. 
British  Patent  Law. — The  Pharmaceutical  Journal  in  discussing 
the  practical  working  of  the  recently  enacted  patent  law  points  out 
that  a  number  of  well  known  English  firms  are  now  preparing  to 
manufacture  some  of  the  articles  now  patented  in  that  country, 
when  the  patent  rights,  according  to  the  new  law,  have  elapsed. 
(Pharm.  Jour.,  London,  Sept.  9,  1908,  p.  319.) 
A  Botanical  Garden  at  Johns  Hopkins  University  has  been  pro- 
vided for  by  the  setting  apart  of  two  acres  of  ground,  at  the  new 
site  for  such  a  purpose.  On  this  ground  it  is  proposed  to  erect  a 
greenhouse  and  a  laboratory  for  plant  physiology.  One  and  one- 
quarter  acres  of  the  land  have  been  laid  out  in  formal  squares 
bounded  by  hemlock  hedges,  within  which  are  beds  and  pools  planted 
with  some  three  hundred  types  illustrating  the  adaptation  of  vege- 
tative organs  of  plants,  the  structure  and  cross  pollination  of 
flowers  and  the  dispersal  of  fruits  and  seeds.  {Science,  Oct.  16, 
1908,  p.  511.) 
Barium  a  Cause  of  the  Loco-weed  Disease. — Bulletin  No.  29  of 
the  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry  is  devoted  to  a  report  of  the  work 
done  by  Crawford  on  the  so-called  loco-weeds  of  the  western  states. 
Crawford  has  found  that  certain  plants,  of  themselves  harmless,  or 
even  available  as  forage,  when  growing  on  certain  soils,  take  up 
barium  in  quantities  sufficient  to  cause  either  acute  or  chronic  poison- 
ing in  live  stock.  This  discovery  is  particularly  surprising  because 
of  the  fact  that  much  time  and  thought  has  been  expended  on  these 
so-called  loco-weeds,  in  years  gone  by,  with  little  or  no  practical 
results. 
Poisoning  by  Bismuth  Subnitrate. — In  a  recent  number  of  the 
