Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
April.  1897.  J 
Editorial. 
217 
Extract  of  opium  is  assayed  by  dissolving  5  grammes  of  the 
extract  in  5  grammes  of  water,  adding  5  grammes  of  alcohol  of  95  °, 
allowing  to  stand,  and  then  transferring  to  a  plain  filter  moistened 
with  alcohol  of  6o°.  The  precipitate  is  washed  with  alcohol  of  400, 
there  being  required  about  10  c.c;  the  operation  is  then  conducted 
in  the  same  manner  as  under  opium. 
The  liquid  preparations  of  opium  are  assayed  by  slight  modifi- 
cations of  the  process  which  readily  suggest  themselves. 
EDITORIAL. 
SUBSTITUTION. 
There  has  been  a  great  deal  said  at  the  National  and  the  various  State  Pharma- 
ceutical Associations  about  substitution,  and  it  is  probable  that  much  more  will 
be  said  this  year  than  ever  before.  It  is  scarcely  necessary,  however,  to  waste 
much  time  on  a  subject  in  which  the  plain  line  of  duty  is  so  clearly  marked 
out  for  the  pharmacist.  Certainly,  every  physician  has  a  right  to  specify  any 
particular  manufacturer's  preparation,  and  the  patient  has  a  right  to  receive  it. 
If  the  pharmacist  to  whom  the  prescription  is  presented  for  compounding  does 
not  care  to  furnish  the  product  of  the  specified  manufacturer,  he  has  a  right 
to  decline  and  to  return  the  prescription.  He  has  no  right,  however,  to  sub- 
stitute his  own  or  anybody  else's  preparation  for  the  one  specified,  even  if  he 
is  sure  the  substitute  is  as  good  or,  as  he  may  think,  better. 
It  is  only  justice  to  Fairchild  Brothers  &  Foster  to  give  them  credit  for  going 
to  considerable  expense  to  bring  certain  guilty  parties  to  justice,  who  have  been 
palming  off,  not  only  substitutes  but  poor  substitutes,  in  prescription  for  their 
essence  of  pepsin.  The  pharmacist  who  does  not  wish  to  dispense  anybody's 
preparation  but  his  own  has  a  remedy  ;  he  can  visit  the  physicians  in  his  local- 
it}',  load  them  up  with  samples  of  his  own  manufacture,  and  perhaps  convince 
them  that  they  are  the  best.  At  the  same  time  it  will  pay  him,  morally,  legally 
and  financially,  to  supply  just  what  is  ordered. 
THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  NOSTRUM. 
We  sincerely  trust  that  certain  nostrum  manufacturers  will  not  garble  the 
preceding  remarks  and  publish  them  as  reading  matter  (paid  for  at  double  the 
advertising  rates)  in  the  newspapers  ;  they  are  not  intended  for  the  patent 
medicine  nabobs. 
Substitution,  as  already  defined,  is  almost  impossible  in  the  sale  of  patent 
medicines,  but  at  the  same  time  the  products  of  the  retail  druggist  are  in  many 
localities  taking  the  place  of  nostrums.  This  has  been  brought  about  by  the 
education  of  the  public  by  the  pharmacist  as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  numerous 
patent  remedies  whose  virtues  lie  more  in  printers'  ink  than  in  intrinsic  merit. 
To  offset  this  disastrous  warfare  against  their  remedies,  the  nostrum  manufac- 
turers resort  frequently  to  paragraphs  like  the  following,  which  start  in  the  city 
papers  and  gradually  find  their  way  into  those  of  the  smallest  country  towns  : 
