AmA^S/i£m'}         Rules  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.  385 
and  it  might  be  well  to  continue  this  parallel;  for  although  the 
U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  is  not  published  by  any  government  or  legal 
authority,  it  is  accepted  by  the  Government  and  most  State  laws  as 
authoritative.  We  must  have  a  standard,  not  only  to  determine 
the  strength  and  purity  of  medicines,  but  if  the  processes  of  the 
Pharmacopceia  can  be  replaced  at  the  will  of  the  operator  by  any 
substitutes  which  occur  to  his  mind,  there  is  great  danger  of  so 
weakening  its  authority  that  a  loose,  chaotic  condition  may  justly 
be  feared.  It  is  true  that  many  laws  on  our  statute  books  have  been 
called  "  dead  letters,"  because  they  have  been  found  to  be  inopera- 
tive, defective,  or  thoroughly  against  public  opinion,  and  thus  dif- 
ficult to  enforce ;  but  this  is  not  paralleled  in  the  case  of  the  U.  S. 
Pharmacopceia.  Very  few  errors,  comparatively  speaking,  were 
found  in  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopceia  of  1890,  and  most  of  these  were 
corrected  after  the  first  edition  appeared.  It  seems  to  be  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  produce  a  book  which  is  absolutely  free  from 
errors,  but  in  a  careful  study  ot  hundreds,  and  possibly  thousands 
of  criticisms  which  have  been  made  in  the  last  ten  years  of  this 
book,  it  can  safely  be  said  that  75  per  cent,  of  these  are  worthless. 
This  is  due  to  various  reasons.  One  man  writes  that  the  proc- 
ess for  solution  of  ferric  chloride  is  defective,  because  it  pro- 
duces a  blackish  turbid  liquid.  The  operator  has  used  nitric  acid 
not  up  to  the  official  requirement,  or  he  has  heated  it  too  strongly 
and  evaporated  a  portion  of  it,  so  that  there  has  not  been  sufficient 
left  to  convert  all  of  the  ferrous  salt  into  the  ferric  modification,  and 
ferrosoferric  chloride  has  been  produced.  Another  man  writes  that 
the  formula  for  tincture  of  calumba  won't  work  ;  it  becomes  clogged 
in  the  percolator.  Investigation  shows  that  he  had  a  stock  of  finely 
powdered  calumba  root,  and  disregarded  the  official  direction  to  use 
No.  20  powder  ;  and  so  it  goes.  Some  detail  of  the  process  has 
usually  been  overlooked  or  considered  unnecessary,  and  the  habit 
of  deviating  from  the  strict  letter  of  the  Pharmacopceia  is  one  which 
grows  rapidly. 
Then,  again,  some  druggist  believes  that  wood  alcohol  is  just  as 
good  for  making  many  of  the  preparations,  and  is  much  cheaper, 
and  he  thinks  that  the  rules  of  the  Pharmacopceia  are  not  binding ; 
it  has  only  been  lately  that  it  has  been  shown  that  wood  alcohol, 
when  taken  internally,  will  cause  blindness.  Some  druggists  find 
that  laudanum  made  by  the  official  process  uses  up  too  much  opium, 
