The  Netherlands  Pharmacopoeia. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  November,  1910. 
were  then  allowed  to  elapse  in  order  that  the  proposed  changes 
might  be  thought  over  and  their  merits  and  applicability  in  practice 
determined.  After  this  preliminary  testing  of  the  new  Fourth 
Edition  it  was  published  in  1905  and  became  the  official  standard  on 
July  1,  1906. 
The  new  work  was  first  printed  in  Hollandese  (Dutch)  and  then 
translated  into  Latin.  The  Latin  edition  contains  about  550  pages, 
and  is  printed  in  clear  type.  The  book  happily  combines  the 
results  of  careful  experimental  work  and  improved  methods  required 
in  the  practice  of  modern  pharmacy,  and  may  be  said  to  be  the  most 
complete  and  scientific  of  any  of  the  national  pharmacopoeias. 
While  it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  consider  in  extenso  the 
various  interesting  features  of  the  new  Netherlands  Pharmacopoeia 
in  the  brief  time  at  my  disposal,  I  shall  point  out  some  of  the  general 
principles  which  maintained  in  the  revision  of  the  work,  and  perhaps 
call  attention  to  some  of  the  individual  drugs  and  classes  of 
preparations. 
One  of  the  notable  features  of  the  Netherlands  Pharmacopoeia, 
and  which  makes  it  a  model  for  an  international  pharmacopoeia, 
which  it  is  in  a  certain  sense,  is  that  due  to  the  adherence  of  the  com- 
mission to  the  standards  adopted  by  the  Brussels  Conference  for  the 
Unification  of  the  Formulae  for  Potent  Medicaments.  While  the 
agreement  for  adopting  these  standards  was  not  signed  until  Novem- 
ber 29,  1906,  that  is,  five  months  after  the  Pharmacopoeia  became 
official,  the  standards  were  practically  adopted  as  proposed  by  the 
Brussels  Conference  in  1902,  and  the  initials  "  F.I."  (Formula 
Internationalis)  are  given  after  the  title  of  each  preparation  of  the 
potent  drugs,  as  "  Tinctura  Aconiti,  F.I." 
The  descriptions  of  the  official  articles  are  uniformly  complete, 
rather  than  what  might  be  termed  adequate,  as  is  the  case  in  most 
of  the  other  pharmacopoeias.  In  practice  this  is  found  to  be  of  very 
great  importance,  as  one  is  not  able  to  say  that  a  supposedly  insig- 
nificant character  is  not  of  importance  at  times.  If  uniform  stand- 
ards mean  anything,  especially  with  such  potent  drugs  as  aconite 
and  digitalis,  for  which  settled  standards  have  not  been  provided, 
it  would  seem  reasonable  that  the  descriptions  of  the  vegetable  drugs, 
as  they  are  the  most  indefinite  substances  on  the  market,  should  not 
only  be  accurate,  but  fairly  complete,  so  as  to  preclude  the  chance 
for  misinterpretation.     In  the  Netherlands  Pharmacopoeia  these 
