580 
Fermented  and  Distilled  Liquors. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  November,  1897. 
SHALL   FERMENTED   AND   DISTILLED   LIQUORS  BE 
DISMISSED  FROM  THE  UNITED  STATES 
PHARMACOPCEIA  ? 
By  Joseph  W.  England. 
The  recommendation  of  the  President  of  the  American  Pharma- 
ceutical Association,  Mr.  J.  E.  Morrison,  in  his  annual  address  deliv- 
ered before  the  recent  meeting  of  that  body,  held  at  Lake  Minne- 
tonka,  that  fermented  and  distilled  "  liquors  "  be  not  recognized  by 
the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  as  medicinal  agents — which  recommenda- 
tion, by  the  by,  was  voted  down  by  the  Association — and  the  paper 
by  N.  S.  Davis,  A.M,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  on  -  The  Therapeutic  Proper- 
ties of  Alcohol  and  the  Reasons  why  the  Fermented  and  Distilled 
Liquors  used  as  Beverages  should  not  be  Recognized  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia as  Medicinal  Agents,"1  have  both  excited  interest  in  the 
medical  and  pharmaceutical  professions. 
President  J.  E.  Morrison,  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Asso- 
ciation, takes  the  ground  that  the  sale  of  "  liquors  "  by  druggists 
has  done  an  incalculable  amount  of  injury  to  American  pharmacy, 
that  the  Government  has  placed  pharmacists  who  sell  "  liquors  " 
on  the  same  footing  as  saloon-keepers ;  that  this  condition  of  affairs 
should  be  terminated  by  the  complete  abolition  of  every  form  of 
dealing  in  fermented  or  spirituous  liquors,  and  that  a  great  advance 
in  this  direction  would  be  taken  if  it  were  decided  to  discard  all 
such  preparations  from  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia. 
The  question  as  to  whether  fermented  and  distilled  liquors  shall  be 
dismissed  or  not  from  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  is,  to  my  mind, 
wholly  a  medical  question.  If  these  liquors  have  sufficient  thera- 
peutic worth  to  warrant  their  use  in  medical  practice,  they  should 
be  retained.  If  they  have  not,  they  should  be  dismissed.  It  is  not 
a  matter  of  sentiment  either  for  or  against  the  liquor  traffic.  It  is 
a  matter  of  simple  justice  to  the  sick.  So  long  as  ''liquors"  are  pre- 
scribed by  a  majority  of  physicians  and  used  by  the  sick,  so  long 
should  our  national  guide-book  recognize  them,  and  demand  a  cer- 
tain standard  of  quality,  the  same  as  it  does  for  any  other  drug. 
The  mere  fact  that  "  liquors  "  are  recognized  by  the  Pharmacopoeia 
1  Read  before  the  Section  on  Materia  Medica,  Pharmacy  and  Therapeutics  of 
the  American  Medical  Association,  at  the  meeting  held  June  1-4,  1897.  Journal 
of  American  Medical  Association,  August  21,  1897.  American  Journal  of 
Pharmacy,  October,  1897. 
