Amiine!'J7h7arm  }  Proposed  Changes  in  the  Pharmacopeia.  279 
irayed,  we  are  not  disposed  quite  so  readily  to  accept  the  impeachment 
that  from  this  weakness  in  the  committee,  its  last  revision  has  'Most  so 
much  ground"  as  to  justify  the  so-called  "  reform."  Let  us  look  the 
matter  fairly  in  the  face.  We  are  informed  that  the  first  four  revisions 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia  "  had  no  sale  or  demand,"  and  that  "until 
within  the  last  ten  years  very  few  in  either  the  medical  or  pharmaceu- 
tical professions  knew  of  its  existence."  (p.  16.)  Evidently  something 
or  somebody  is  at  fault  here!  Either  the  critic  is  wrong  in  saying  that 
44 up  to  i860,  inclusive,  it  was  accepted  as  the  best  attainable  authority, 
and  was  received  and  respected  as  such,"  (p.  39.)  or,  we  fear  that  the 
revision  committe  of  1870  cannot  escape  the  charge  of  having  mali- 
ciously caused  the  fifth  and  last  edition  of  the  work  to  attain  u  within 
the  last  ten  years"  a  prominence  so  unusual,  when,  according  to  all  the 
requirements  of  the  situation,  it  should  have  been  "losing  ground!" 
Another  important  suggestion  bearing  on  the  process  or  method  of 
the  work  has  reference  to  the  frequency  of  the  revision.  "A  revision 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia  every  ten  years  mav  have  been  quite  often  enough 
in  1820,  '30  and  '40,  and  even  in  1850,  but  outside  of  its  present 
organization,  it  has  since  that  time  been  generally  believed  that  in  order 
to  keep  pace  with  the  more  rapid  progress  of  general  medical  science, 
the  revisions  should  be  more  frequent."  (pp.  4,  5.)  "  The  council 
should  make  a  general  revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  at  least  once  in 
five  years."  (p.  17.)  By  "making  a  revision  every  five  instead  of  ten 
years  (subsequently  perhaps  even  oftener  than  that)  we  should  be  able 
to  keep  within  the  covers  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  nothing  but  what  has 
been  fully  tried,  fully  known  and  fully  described  in  detail."  (p.  21.) 
The  project  of  a  quinquennial  Convention  for  Revision  is  believed 
to  be  a  judicious  one,  and  called  for  by  the  scientific  activity  of  the 
age.  A  revision  more  frequent  than  twice  in  a  decade,  we  do  not  think 
likely  to  be  of  advantage  to  either  profession.  We  do  not  agree,  there- 
fore, with  the  suggestion  that  there  is  good  reason  "  for  supposing  that 
a  fasciculus  might  with  advantage  be  issued  annually  or  biennially,  thus 
keeping  the  work  up  to  the  level  of  current  literature  and  knowledge." 
(p.  5.)  Nor  are  we  inclined  to  believe  that  even  "in  the  long  periods 
of  ten  years  many  valuable  articles  are  lost  with  the  worthless  mass  of 
trash,  not  so  much  by  the  prejudice  excited  by  the  company  in  which 
ffhey  are  found,  as  from  a  failure  to  recognize  them  and  classify  them 
