Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
December,  1910.  J 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
573 
Commenting  on  the  nature  of  the  coming  Pharmacopoeia  he 
says :  "  The  Pharmacopoeia  that  the  pharmacists  of  the  United 
States  demand  must  be  one  that  is  so  precise  in  its  every  direction, 
so  careful  in  the  most  minute  detail,  that  any  person  engaged  in 
the  practice  of  pharmacy  will  be  able  to  perform  each  and  every 
operation  directed  in  the  work." 
Use  of  the  Pharmacopoeia. — An  abstract  from  the  Lancet  points 
out  that  the  recognition  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  as  containing 
official  standards  for  medicines  has  tended  more  and  more  to  make 
the  chemical  portions  of  the  book  encroach  upon  the  medical 
portions.  In  other  words  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  consider 
the  Pharmacopoeia  from  the  analyst's  point  of  view  rather  than 
the  physician's.  The  abstract  further  points  out  that  while  it  is 
desirable  that  drugs  intended  for  other  than  medical  use  should 
reach  a  certain  standard  of  purity,  it  would  appear  that  this  could 
be  achieved  by  other  means  than  defining  them  in  a  pharma- 
copoeia, and  that  in  the  compilation  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  all  con- 
siderations should  be  subordinated  to  the  needs  of  the  medical 
profession,  and  as  a  guide  to  pharmacists  [Pharm.  J.  (Lond.), 
1910,  v.  55,  p.  323). 
Scope  of  the  Pharmacopoeia. — A.  S.  Loevenhart,  in  a  discussion 
on  the  scope  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States,  points 
out  that  the  final  decision  regarding  the  scope  of  the  Pharmacopoeia 
was  left,  by  the  Convention,  in  the  hands  of  the  General  Com- 
mittee of  Revision  and  that  this  committee  can,  if  it  will,  restrict 
the  scope  to  drugs  that  are  generally  recognized  as  being  useful 
or  having  therapeutic  value  (/.  Am.  M.  Ass.,  1910,  v.  55,  p.  1370). 
An  editorial  discussing  the  scope  of  the  forthcoming  Pharma- 
copoeia of  the  United  States  points  out  that  considerable  restriction 
and  weeding  out  are  desirable.  The  adoption  or  rejection  of  the 
broad  principle  of  wise  restriction  will  determine  whether  the  book 
is  to  be  a  book  of  scientific  materia  medica  or  merely  a  book  of 
pharmaceutical  formulas  and  standards ;  or,  in  other  words,  whether 
the  Pharmacopoeia  is  to  be  revised  in  the  interest  of  medicine  or 
in  the  interest  of  medicines  (/.  Am.  M.  Ass.,  1910,  v.  55,  p.  1387). 
Publicity  in  Connection  with  Pharmacopoeia!  Revision. — The 
revisers  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Codex  are  giving  an  un- 
usual amount  of  publicity  to  the  proposed  changes  that  are  to  be 
introduced  in  that  book.  For  some  weeks  the  Pharmaceutical 
Journal  has  presented  formulas  with  the  request  that  criticisms 
