ANove0mbe^fia9o™'}        Recognition  of  ■  Synthetic  Chemicals.  555 
compounds,  the  conditions  or  causes  that  have  made  them  popular, 
and  also  reflect  for  a  moment  on  their  real  value  by  comparing  them 
with  some  of  the  official  drugs. 
That  this  whole  class  of  proprietary  or  patented  remedies  can 
hardly  be  considered  as  an  unmixed  blessing,  is  readily  demon- 
strated by  the  fact  that  every  pharmacy  has,  in  the  prescription 
department,  one  or  more  shelves  that  may  be  designated  as  "  a 
graveyard  for  proprietary  medicines."  If  you  will  just  allow  the 
contents  of  your  own  waste-stock  shelves  to  pass  before  your  mind's 
eye,  you  will  recall  many  a  half-filled  bottle,  the  contents  of  which, 
at  the  present  time,  is  absolutely  worthless.  Some  of  these  remedies 
were  short-lived  and  never  very  popular ;  others,  you  will  remember, 
were,  in  their  day,  considered  as  permanent  additions  to  the  materia 
medica ;  for  one  reason  or  another  they  were  popular  for  a  consider- 
able length  of  time,  then  their  popularity  gradually  began  to  wane, 
and  to-day  they  are  but  a  memory. 
While  it  is  true  that  many  of  these  preparations  now  found  on  the 
dead-stock  shelves  were  simple  mixtures  put  together  with  a  vari- 
able amount  of  skill  and  ingenuity,  still,  a  fair  percentage  of  them 
were,  or  were  supposed  to  be,  chemical  products,  and  were  the  out- 
come or  result  of  a  considerable  amount  of  experimentation  and  skill. 
Chemicals  and  chemical  combinations  are,  of  course,  the  substances 
that  the  revision  committee  will  be  called  on  to  consider  with  a  view 
of  incorporating  them  in  the  text  of  the  coming  pharmacopoeia. 
We  can  eliminate,  then,  all  galenical  preparations  or  mixtures,  the 
composition  or  manufacture  of  which  is  usually  kept  secret,  and 
confine  our  inquiry  or  remarks  to  such  products  of  the  chemical 
laboratory  as  will  come  clearly  within  the  initial  clause  of  the  revi- 
sion committee's  instructions. 
Let  us  reflect  for  a  few  moments  on  the  methods  that  are  used  in 
launching  one  of  these  newT  chemical  substances  on  the  drug  mar- 
ket. To  begin  with,  the  composition  or  properties  of  the  substance 
itself  are  of  much  less  importance  than  the  acquirement  of  an  ener- 
getic and  efficient  business  manager. 
Having  a  compound  and  a  business  manager,  the  next  step  is  to 
introduce  the  new  remedy  to  a  number  of  prominent  physicians, 
preferably  those  connected  with  teaching  institutions  or  hospitals. 
For  this  purpose  the  service  of  an  energetic  agent  is  secured,  whose 
business  it  is  to  visit  the  different  physicians  for  the  purpose  of 
