Amju°e!: 'i8P77arm' }  Proposed  Changes  in  the  Pharmacopeia.  295 
fund,  from  which  the  expenses  of  the  Convention  should  be  paid  ;  and 
4'thly,  the  payment  from  such  fund  of  all  necessary  expenses  of  the 
Committee  of  Revision,  including  the  actual  traveling  expenses  of  its 
members. 
On  the  first  proposition  but  little  needs  be  said.  It  can  scarcely  be 
questioned  that  an  organization  of  such  authority  and  responsibility, 
should  have  the  chartered  franchise  enabling  it  to  hold  and  to  de- 
fend its  property  ;  so  that  in  its  own  name  and  by  its  own  act  it 
should  be  legally  qualified  to  resist  either  the  infringements  of  publish- 
ers or  the  trespasses  of  aspiring  associations  of  men  willing  to 
"relieve"  it  of  the  management  of  its  affairs,  or  to  "assume"  the 
possession  of  its  prerogatives.  We  believe,  moreover,  that  it  is  most 
consistent  with  the  dignity  of  the  Convention  that  the  legal  possession 
of  the  copyright  of  its  own  peculiar  production,  should  not  be  delega- 
ted even  to  its  own  Committee,  which  has  heretofore  so  faithfully  and 
so  honorably  discharged  its  delicate  trust.  The  President  of  the  Con- 
vention (and  his  successors  or  official  representatives)  should  by  the 
organic  constitution  of  the  body,  have  the  duty  of  calling  the  Conven- 
tion every  five  years,  in  a  specified  manner  and  at  a  specified  time  and 
place  ;  and  the  further  right  to  convene  the  body  at  any  intermediate 
time  when  in  his  judgment  circumstances  should  render  it  expedient. 
On  the  second  proposition  it  may  be  remarked  that  nothing  can  be 
more  unseemly  than  struggles  of  members — the  partisans  of  rival  cities, 
eager  to  secure  the  supposed  advantages  of  a  local  publication.  Should 
it  be  decided,  for  instance,  that  the  sessions  of  the  next  Committee  of 
Revision  shall  be  held  in  Boston,  what  could  be  more  derogatory 
than  a  contest  whether  the  printing  and  publishing  of  the  book  should 
be  sent  to  a  Philadelphia  house,  willing  to  underbid  a  responsible  pub- 
lisher on  the  ground,  in  whom  the  committee  had  entire  confidence  ? 
That  such  local  jealousies  have  been  entertained  and  openly  avowed  is 
only  too  notorious.  In  the  discussion  following  Dr.  Squibb's  presenta- 
tion of  his  enterprise  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association  in  September,  1876,  Mr.  Colcord,  of  Boston,  remarked, 
"  The  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  has  always  been  published  in  one 
city,  and  by  one  set  of  men  ;  and  it  got  into  a  rut  and  became  a  Phila- 
delphia institution.  Not  but  what  that  made  a  better  Pharmacopoeia 
than  it  would  have  been  if  it  had  gone  to  Chicago  or  Boston,  but  it 
was  a  local  institution."  1  As  the  Acts  of  Congress  also  "  have  always 
1  Proceedings  Am.  Pharm.  Assoc.  :    1876.    vol.  xxiv.,  p.  637. 
