284  Proposed  Changes  in  the  Pharmacopeia.  {Amj/1°e)r'1^?rm' 
uses,  actions  and  doses  (average,  maxima  and  dangerous)  of  the  materia 
medica,  constituting  it  a  comprehensive  manual  of  Pharmacology. 
That  such  a  work  would  be  much  more  generally  useful  both  to  "  Medi- 
cine "  and  to  Pharmacy,  than  a  mere  Pharmacopoeia,  cannot  of  course 
admit  of  doubt. 
Not  only  is  it  desired,  hcwever,  to  u  embrace  a  dispensatory  or  its 
equivalent  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  itself,"  without  which  44  any  amend- 
ment of  the  present  plan  ....  will  be  no  improvement  on  the 
past,"  (p.  13.)  but  it  is  proposed  that  the  same  authority  which  controls 
and  revises  this  work,  should  also  supply  a  bulletin  of  14  knowledge  for 
that  which  is  new  in  advancing  the  art  of  medicine."  To  attain  this 
end,  it  is  held  that  the  council  should  be  required  44  to  issue  a  fasciculus 
or  small  inexpensive  volume  in  addition  each  year,  giving  the  best  at- 
tainable information  in  regard  to  new  remedies  and  their  uses,  and  the 
important  elements  of  progress  in  the  materia  medica  and  pharmacy  up 
to  the  time  of  the  annual  publications  Thus  each  fasci- 
culus would  become  a  useful  ephemeris  for  its  day,  and  these  epherne- 
rides  would  serve  not  only  to  keep  the  profession  of  medicine  and 
pharmacy  informed  in  regard  to  the  novelties  as  they  might  occur,  but 
assist  in  discriminating  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  saving  both  pro- 
fessions from  some  of  the  influences  of  fashion,  frivolity  and  mercan- 
tile speculation  in  medicine."  (p.  14.)  44  The  book  should  be  simply 
regarded  as  an  organized  means  of  presenting  to  the  professions  of 
medicine  and  pharmacy  a  periodical  summary  of  important  and  useful 
information  upon  which  more  accurate  knowledge  may  accumulate  m 
a  more  methodical  manner  in  the  future  than  in  the  past."  (p.  45.) 
Work  of  this  kind  we  believe  to  be  so  entirely  foreign  to  the  legiti- 
mate province  of  either  a  Pharmacopoeia  or  a  Dispensatory,  that  we 
cannot  regard  the  proposal  with  favor.  When  it  is  considered  how 
much  room  for  controversy  exists  with  every  novelty  in  medicine,  the 
difference  of  opinion  animated  too  frequentlv  with  the  spirit  of  per- 
sonal interest  and  44  mercantile  bias,"  it  is  certainly  safer  to  leave  such 
discussions  where  they  properly  belong,  and  where  they  can  best  be 
managed,  with  the  able  conductors  of  44  New  Remedies  "  and  of  the 
varied  periodical  literature  devoted  to  the  interests  of  medicine  and 
pharmacy.  As  correctly  stated  in  the  Preface  to  the  last  edition  of 
the  Pharmacopoeia,  44  Such  a  work  must  necessarly  follow  in  the  wake 
of  advancing  knowledge  ;  it  is  no  part  of  its  mission  to  lead  in  the 
