Am.  Jour.  Pharra.  \ 
December,  1907.  J 
Pharmaceutical  Meeting. 
581 
NOVEMBER  PHARMACEUTICAL  MEETING. 
The  regular  pharmaceutical  meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  College 
of  Pharmacy  was  held  Tuesday  afternoon,  N6vember  19th,  with 
President  Howard  B.  French  in  the  chair,  who  said  in  part  in  intro- 
ducing the  speakers: 
"  The  addresses  to-day  deal  with  theories  which  are  comparatively 
new,  but  which  are  exceedingly  interesting  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  research  worker." 
The  meeting  was  well  attended,  and  was  devoted  principally  to  a 
symposium  on  the  "  Opsonic  Theory  "  and  its  application  in  the 
treatment  of  infections. 
Dr.  A.  Parker  Hitchens,  of  Glenolden,  Pa.,  who  spent  the  past 
summer  working  in  the  laboratory  of  Sir  A.  E.  Wright,  of  England, 
the  author  of  the  Opsonic  Theory,  read  an  interesting  paper  entitled 
"  The  Opsonic  Theory  and  Bacterial  Vaccines."    (See  page  556.) 
Dr.  E.  Burvill-Holmes,  bacteriologist  of  the  Phipps  Institute, 
Philadelphia,  an  institution  designed  for  the  study  and  treatment  of 
tuberculosis,  read  a  somewhat  technical,  but  instructive  paper  on 
"  The  Opsonic  Theory  and  its  Relation  to  Tuberculosis,"  which  is 
published  in  this  number  of  this  Journal  (p.  563).  Two  points 
emphasized  by  Dr.  Burvill-Holmes  were  smallness  of  dose  of  the 
bacterial  vaccines  and  a  strict  adherence  to  the  technique  worked 
out  by  Wright  and  some  other  investigators. 
It  was  brought  out  in  the  general  discussion  that  while  the  field 
of  the  so-called  vaccine  therapy  is  a  promising  one,  and  that  while 
the  vaccines  have  been  shown  to  have  a  value  in  certain  diseases, 
particularly  those  of  a  localized  character,  and  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  are  able  to  carry  out  the  technique  involved  in  determining  the 
opsonic  index,  there  is  need  of  conservatism  in  their  application. 
Dr.  Burvill-Holmes  when  asked  as  to  the  results  of  the  treatment 
at  Phipps  Institute,  said  that  he  preferred  to  occupy  a  conservative 
position.  He  said  that  the  patients  in  the  hospital  at  Phipps  Insti- 
tute had  tuberculosis  in  a  more  or  less  advanced  stage,  as  only  those 
known  to  have  the  disease  were  admitted,  and  that  some  of  them 
were  benefited  and  others  not.  In  the  dispensary  of  the  Institute, 
on  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Burvill-Holmes  said  that  a  fair  measure  of 
success  had  been  attained. 
Dr.  John  M.  Swan,  of  the  Polyclinic  Hospital,  Philadelphia,  said 
that  he  had  visited  Wright's  Laboratory  and  his  clinics  at  St.  Mary's 
