2  14  The  United  States  Pharmacopceia  and  {Am'i™;J*axm 
the  United  States  "  specifically  invited  to  send  delegates  to  this  general 
Convention,  and  yet  it  is  not  national!  What,  then,  is  to  make  it 
"  national "  ?  A  penal  enactment  in  Congress  that  every  specified 
association  in  every  State  shall  send  delegates  ?  Let  us  hear  Dr. 
Squibb's  own  statement.  "The  fact  that  in  this  organization  the  med- 
ical profession  of  eight  to  twelve  States  only  was  represented,  was  not 
the  fault  of  the  organization,  for  each  decennial  Convention  not  only 
invited  delegates  from  all  the  States,  but  urged  upon  State  Societies, 
Colleges,  etc.,  the  importance  of  being  represented  in  and  aiding  in  a 
work  of  such  importance."  (p.  6.)  So,  according  to  our  author,  some- 
thing more  than  the  right  to  send  delegates,  or  the  formal  request,  or 
the  urgent  solicitation  to  send  delegates,  is  requisite  to  confer  a  general 
or  national  character  upon  the  Convention.  By  this  postulate,  the 
attempted  secession  of  the  Southern  States,  some  sixteen  years  ago, 
left  us  without  a  u  National "  Congress  !  even  though  it  might  be 
charitably  conceded  that  the  default  of  the  absenting  representatives 
"  was  not  the  fault"  of  the  faithful  Congress.  If  the  Medical  section 
of  the  constituency  of  the  Convention  neglected  in  many  of  the  States 
to  present  an  appearance  in  response  to  the  urgent  invitatipn  of  the 
Convention,  this  apparent  apathy  "  was  not  the  fault  of  the  organiza- 
tion and  if  it  may  have  been,  as  suggested  by  Dr.  Squibb,  "  perhaps 
more  than  all,  because  the  aggregate  profession  had  full  confidence  in 
the  few  men  who  managed  the  interest  so  well,  and  trusted  them  fully, 
basing  this  trust  justly  upon  the  beneficent  results  of  their  labors (p.  6.) 
possibly  it  was  quite  as  much  because  the  aggregate  profession  felt  but 
little  special  interest  in  the  object  of  the  Convention,  and  but  little  dis- 
position to  engage  in  a  laborious  and  somewhat  thankless  undertaking. 
As  a  contrasted  picture  to  this  local  and  sectional  Convention,  let  us 
contemplate  what  is  characterized  as  "  a  truly  national  organization  " 
in  the  American  Medical  Association.  "From  1848  to  the  present 
time  this  Association  has  consisted  of  representatives  from  so  nearly  all 
the  States  that  it  must  be  fairly  considered  a  national  organization." 
(p.  6.)  Could  not  some  of  this  "  truly  national  "  flavor  be  generously 
imparted  to  the  now  limited  and  provincial  Convention  ?  "  It  would 
be  quite  competent  for  this  Association,  at  its  meeting  for  1879,  to 
direct  one  of  its  constituent  members  from  each  State  Medical  Society 
to  attend  this  4  Convention  for  Revising  the  Pharmacopoeia'  in  i88o> 
and  thus  give  to  the  organization  that  nationality  of  character  which  it 
