Am.^jour^Pharm.  \    Changes  in  United  States  Pharmacopeia.  349 
apparent,"  but  for  other  changes  it  may  be  difficult  to  assign  a 
tangible  explanation. 
The  decision  whether  an  article  or  formula  shall  be  admitted  to, 
retained  in,  or  deleted  from  the  official  list  of  titles  is  presumed  to 
be  based  upon  the  medical  practice  of  the  time  and  the  general  or 
extended  use  of  such  medicament.  The  late  Professor  C.  S.  N. 
Hallberg  assiduously  gathered  statistics  from  all  over  the  United 
States  to  determine  the  facts  regarding  the  use  of  hundreds  of  drugs 
and  preparations  with  the  expectation  that  the  statistics  so  gathered 
would  be  available  and  accepted  by  the  Committee  of  Revision  as 
the  basis  for  deciding  the  admission,  retention  or  dismissal  of 
articles  on  the  official  list.  The  decisions  of  the  committee  seem 
to  indicate  that  these  data  were  not  given  the  consideration  it  had 
been  expected  they  would  receive  and  that  the  decisions  on  such 
matters  were  largely  based  on  personal  practice  and  preferences. 
Consequently,  it  is  hard  to  reconcile  as  consistent  the  changes  made 
by  the  additions  and  deletions.  It  is,  for  example,  difficult  to  explain 
why  acidum  camphoricum  was  dismissed  and  acidum  phenylcin- 
chonicum  has  been  admitted,  and  why  apocynum  and  fluidextract 
of  apocynum  were  deleted  and  aspidospermum  and  fluidextract  of 
aspidospermum  have  been  introduced. 
On  the  basis  of  American  medical  practice  and  use,  it  is  even 
more  difficult  to  explain  the  expulsion  from  the  official  list  of  such 
popular  formulas  as  cataplasm  of  kaolin,  antiseptic  solution,  Gou- 
lard's cerate,  compound  resin  cerate,  compound  acetanilid  powder, 
mixture  of  rhubarb  and  soda,  compound  spirit  of  ether,  compound 
syrup  of  hypophosphites,  and  ointment  of  red  mercuric  oxide.  How 
fortunate  it  is  that  we  have  in  the  National  Formulary  a  second 
legal  authority  and  that  it  has  incorporated  these  formulas  and  so 
retained  authoritative  legal  standards  for  these.  It  may  be  that  the 
knowledge  that  the  National  Formulary  would  probably  adopt  these 
dismissed  formulas  may  have  influenced  the  decisions  of  the  phar- 
macopeia revision  committee.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause, 
these  actions  demonstrate  the  necessity  for  the  two  legal  standards 
and  how  fortunate  it  was  that  the  National  Formulary  was  system- 
atically revised.  The  increased  importance  thus  accorded  to  the 
National  Formulary  now  makes  imperative  that  it  be  permanently 
maintained  on  a  high  scientific  basis. 
The  improvements  in  the  directions  for  the  preparing  and  the 
proper  storing  of  galenicals  in  order  to  insure  permanency  and 
