Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
July,  1910.  J 
International  Standards. 
307 
ome  of  the  several  national  pharmacopoeias  and  also  an  outline  of 
suggestions  for  further  discussion.  It  was  specifically  pointed  out 
that :  "  The  international  pharmacopoeia  is  not  to  supersede  national 
pharmacopoeias  but  it  is  desirable  that  in  the  construction  of  the 
latter  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  international  pharmacopoeia 
should  be  adopted." 
It  was  further  agreed  that  the  language  of  the  proposed  code 
should  be  Latin,  that  the  metric  system  should  be  adopted  in  the 
formulae  of  the  preparations,  that  the  nomenclature  be  uniform, 
that  galenical  preparations,  such  as  tinctures,  extracts,  etc.,  should 
be  made  as  nearly  uniform  as  possible,  and  that  the  maximum  admis- 
sable  amount  of  impurity  in  chemical  preparations  be  stated. 
This  admittedly  excellent  ideal  was  never  developed  and  at  the 
fifth  International  Pharmaceutical  Congress,  held  in  London,  1881, 
it  was  learned  that  the  manuscript  that  had  been  prepared  by  the 
Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Paris  was  inadvertently  destroyed  by  fire 
and  that  nothing  of  practical  value  had  been  accomplished  in  the 
interval. 
Considerable  impetus  to  the  development  of  an  international 
pharmacopoeia  was  given  by  the  "  Universal  Pharmacopoe "  by 
Bruno  Hirsh.  The  first  edition  of  this  compilation,  published  in 
1887,  included  an  epitome  of  all  of  the  known  national  pharmaco- 
poeias. The  second  edition  of  the  work,  published  in  1902,  includes 
4450  separate  articles  and  an  index  covering  46  three-column  pages. 
Even  a  casual  comparison  of  the  compilation  by  Jourdan  and  the 
later  one  by  Hirsh  evidences  the  fact  that  the  rapid  dissemination 
of  news  and  knowledge,  the  introduction  of  the  metric  system  of 
weights  and  measures,  the  tendency  to  eliminate  inert  or  useless 
materials  from  pharmacopoeias,  and  the  more  frequent  intercom- 
munication between  the  people  of  widely  separated  countries  have 
served  to  bring  about  a  gradual  approximation  in  the  names  and  the 
strength  of  various  medicaments. 
On  the  other  hand  many  of  the  agencies  which  have  been  instru- 
mental in  bringing  about  this  approximation  also  tend  to  emphasize 
the  still  existing  differences  in  the  name  and  strength  of  widely 
used  preparations. 
The  overconservatism  manifested  by  the  stay-at-home  element 
in  medicine  and  pharmacy  is  largely  responsible  for  the  lack  of 
progress  or  of  practical  results  from  the  several  International  Con- 
gresses held  previous  to  1900. 
