A  jaSyfi907.m'}     Work  of  the  Council  on  Pharmacy.  23 
months  ago,  the  reputable  members  of  the  medical  profession  par- 
ticularly were  beginning  to  demand  that  fakes  and  sham  synthetics 
be  pointed  out,  and  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association 
was  recognized  as  of  such  standing  and  authoritative  position  before 
the  profession  that  its  advertising  columns  particularly  should  be 
cleared,  as  far  as  possible,  of  this  offensive  material.  We  will  prob- 
ably understand  this  demand  better  if  we  look  for  a  moment  at  the 
conditions  that  existed  when  this  movement  was  started. 
Every  physician  and  pharmacist  knows  the  way  in  which  we  have 
been  overwhelmed,  for  some  years  past,  with  a  flood  of  German 
remedies.  These  synthetics,  distributed  through  American  agents 
of  the  large  German  chemical  manufacturing  firms,  are  advertised  at 
great  expense,  and  with  ,  a  profusion  of  accompanying  literature, 
much  of  it  giving  the  results  of  clinical  tests  in  German  hospitals, 
and  with  a  United  States  patent  (usually  a  product  patent)  already 
secured  in  advance  of  the  introduction  of  the  remedy.  Of  course 
with  a  product  patent  it  is  necessary  to  define  the  same,  and  we  have, 
therefore,  in  most  of  these  cases,  very  elaborate  chemical  names  and 
even  structural  formula  to  back  up  the  statements  as  to  the  identity 
of  the  material,  although  the  products  were  introduced  also  with 
short  fanciful  trade  names,  of  which  I  will  speak  specially  in  a 
moment.  The  chemical  names,  in  many  cases,  were  simply  paralyz- 
ing to  the  average  medical  practitioner  or  pharmacist  who  is 
expected  to  sell  the  preparation.  If  you  turn,  for  instance,  to  the 
well  known  preparation  "  Eucain  A,"  you  will  find  that  the  chemical 
name  of  the  same  is  given  as  the  hydrochloride  of  "  benzol, 
n-methyltetramethyl-oxypiperidincarbonsauremethylesters,"  while 
with  "  Eucain  B"  we  get  off  with  a  name  of  half  the  length,  namely, 
hydrochloride  of  u  benzoylvinyldiacetonalkamins,"  or,  if  we  turn  to 
one  of  the  newer  substitutes  for  cocaine,  named  "  Alypin,"  we  have 
as  the  chemical  synonym,  "  monohydrochloride  of  Benzoyl- 1.3 
tetramethyl-diamine-2  ethylisopropylic  alcohol."  Examples  might 
be  multiplied  to  illustrate  this  series  of  impossible  chemical  names, 
the  result,  of  course,  being  that  in  all  cases  the  special  trade  name, 
copyrighted  by  the  German  manufacturer  or  his  American  agent, 
came  into  immediate  use,  so  that  the  article  was  always  asked  for 
and  supplied  under  that  name,  but  it  was  soon  found  that  some  of 
these  trade-marked  proprietary  names  represented  the  claims  which 
different  manufacturers  made  for  one  and  the  same  article,  thus  Uro- 
tropine,  Formin,  Aminoform,  and  later  Cystogen,  all  of  them  repre- 
