a  1 6  The  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  and  {Am^-1|^m' 
have  to  be  frequent  during  the  general  revisions,  and  perhaps  two  or 
three  times  a  year  for  the  supplementary  fasciculi,  and  as  the  members 
would  have  to  educate  themselves  to  the  special  work,  it  would,  per- 
haps, be  better  that  the  council  should  be  small  and  compact,  and  live 
in  adjacent  cities."  (p.  9.)  As  three  of  the  council  are  to  constitute  a 
quorum,  (p.  54.)  who  may  "  obtain  a  change  in  any  of  its  members," 
we  should  probably  have,  as  the  final  outcome  of  the  so  much  vaunted 
nationality  "  of  the  enterprise^  Pharmacopoeia  under  the  entire  control 
of  three  representatives  of  the  United  States,  (small  and  compact)  "  living 
in  immediately  adjacent  cities  !  "  And  this  is  gravely  proposed  as  an 
eminently  tc  national  "  improvement  on  the  existing  local  plan  of  an 
executive  Committee  of  fifteen,  representing  nine  leading  cities,  from 
Boston  to  Richmond,  and  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  together 
with  a  representative  of  the  Army  and  of  the  Navy  of  the  United 
States. 
There  is  in  the  proposal,  on  behalf  of  the  youthful  Association,  to 
quietly  "assume  the  ownership"  of  the  special  and  peculiar  property 
of  an  old-established  and  entirely  independent  organization,  an  element 
of  the  ludicrous,  which  we  think  that  Dr.  Squibb  himself  could  not 
fail  to  appreciate,  were  he  to  change  his  subjective  for  an  objective 
stand-point.  Perhaps  the  nearest  typical  analogue  of  the  proposition  is 
to  be  found  in  Mr.  Dickens'  veracious  history  of  a  somewhat  similar 
appropriation  by  Mr.  John  Dawkins  (otherwise  known  as  "The  Artful  * 
Dodger")  of  a  silver  snuff-box  ;  he  having  first  unanimously  adopted 
the  mental  "  resolution,"  that  he  "  does  now  and  hereby  relieve  the 
late  proprietor  from  any  farther  acts  of  ownership,  control,  or  manage- 
ment of  the  aforesaid  silver  snuff-box." 
Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Associa- 
tion, at  its  forthcoming  meeting,  should  adopt  the  following  preamble 
and  resolutions  : 
Whereas,  The  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  as  being  the  only  organ- 
ized body  which  represents  the  profession  of  Pharmacy  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  may  fairly  claim  the  right  to  control  all  the  general  rights  and  interests  of 
the  profession  ;  and 
Whereas,  "  The  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States  of  America,"  is  among 
the  most  important  of  such  general  rights  and  interests  ;  and 
Whereas,  A  national  Pharmacopoeia  is  in  no  proper  sense  a  Manual  of  Thera- 
peutics, but  is,  and  should  ever  continue  to  be,  ic  an  authorized  dictionary  of  the 
standard  materia  medica  and 
