Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
February.  1910. 
}       Pharmacognosy  and  the  U.S. P.  55 
drug  preparations  which  will  have  the  total  action  of  the  respective 
drug." 
At  any  rate,  we  have  not  advanced  to  that  point  where  we  know 
or  can  isolate  the  active  constituents  in  all  cases,  or  where  we  are 
willing  to  say  in  those  cases  where  certain  active  constituents  have 
been  isolated  that  they  represent  the  full  medicinal  value  of  the 
drug  and  could  replace  the  preparations.  Hence  it  cannot  be  gain- 
said that  there  is  an  urgent  demand  for  accurate  and  adequate,  if 
not  full,  pharmacognostic  descriptions  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.  With 
the  introduction  of  standards  for  crude  drugs  which  not  only  fix 
the  percentage  of  certain  active  constituents  but  which  assure  their 
quality  in  other  ways,  preparations  can  be  made  by  the  pharmacist 
on  which  the  physician  can  rely  for  their  therapeutic  efficiency. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  claim  that  with  every  drug  it  is  possible 
to  indicate  by  adequate  descriptions  and  if  necessary  by  other  tests 
than  assays  a  standard  quality  which  will  insure  uniformity,  stability, 
and  efficiency  of  the  preparations  into  which  the  drug  enters.  If 
there  is  any  class  of  articles  included  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  which 
requires  a  purity  rubric  it  is  the  vegetable  drugs,  as  they  vary  in 
medicinal  activity  from  practically  zero  up  to  99  per  cent.,  the 
official  drugs  being  in  some  instances  entirely  substituted  by  other 
drugs,  or  they  are  of  varying  degree  of  quality  because  of  their 
age,  or  the  conditions  under  which  they  have  been  kept,  or  because 
of  the  presence  of  a  large  excess  of  other  parts  of  the  plant  than 
that  designated  as  the.  drug,  or  because  of  foreign  impurities.  It 
would  seem  to  be  unnecessary  to  refer  to  this  subject,  as  the  prin- 
ciple is  one  so  self-evident  and  fundamental  to  the  observing  phar- 
macist, as  well  as  critical  practitioner,  who  is  studying  the  effects 
of  drugs  and  their  preparations  on  his  patients.  The  manufacturers 
of  specialties  understand  this,  as  do  also  some  of  the  large  manu- 
facturing houses,  and  this  is  no  doubt  one  of  the  reasons  why  their 
preparations  are  specified  and  will  continue  to  be  used  by  those 
physicians  who  are  not  trusting  to  luck  or  chance. 
FOREIGN  PHARMACOPOEIAS. 
The  importance  of  adequate  pharmacognostic  descriptions  and 
tests  appears  to  be  recognized  by  the  compilers  of  all  the  more 
recent  foreign  pharmacopoeias  that  have  come  to  my  notice.  The 
question  with  the  revisers  of  these  books  seems  to  be  not  a  matter 
of  considering  the  pharmacist's  ability  or  inability  to  apply  the 
