^^1877*™'}  Proposed  Changes  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.  297 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  a  great  public  good  will  have  been  effected,  and 
the  profession  will  have  true  cause  for  gratulation. 
The  zeal  manifested  to  have  the  work  of  revision  specifically  local- 
ized, so  disproportioned  to  the  zeal  displayed  in  actual  performance  of 
the  work,  has  not  apparently  an  adequate  impelling  motive.  Speaking 
from  experience,  we  believe  that  one  who  has  twice  served  upon  the 
Executive  Committee  (as  a  working,  not  as  an  ornamental  member), 
will  be  very  glad  to  wash  his  hands  thereafter  from  further  personal 
anxiety,  fatigue,  and  responsibility  in  the  conduct  of  the  revision.  The 
honor  or  credit  attending  its  duties  is  of  an  apocryphal  character,  the 
thanks,  if  any,  stand  at  an  infinitesimal  figure,  the  criticisms  upon  the 
result  not  always  friendly  in  spirit,  the  occupation  of  precious  time 
tedious  and  exacting,  the  expenditure  of  real  and  prolonged  labor  very 
serious,  and  finally  the  compensation  for  all  this — nothing!  If  those 
who  appear  to  be  so  desirous  of  obtaining  the  work  for  New  York  or 
Boston  have  in  view  the  dim  perspective  of  a  more  enlarged  worldly- 
wisdom,  it  is  perhaps  well  that  such  anticipations  should  be  definitely 
settled.  To  remove  all  occasion,  either  for  temptation  or  suspicion  of 
partiality  or  "  mercantile  bias,"  no  course  appears  so  direct  and  decisive 
as  the  exclusion  of  the  copyright  from  any  local  or  personal  disposition. 
The  practical  business  of  publication  can  well  be  performed  by  a 
judiciously  selected  Committee,  as  the  Proceedings,  Transactions  and 
Journals  of  learned  Societies  are  usually  conducted. 
On  the  third  proposition  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  a  treasury 
necessarily  follows  from  the  possession  of  an  income  and  a  fund.  By 
simply  retaining  the  possession  of  its  own  literary  property  under  the 
editorship  of  its  Revising  Committee,  and  the  management  of  its 
Publishing  Comittee,  and  by  distributing  its  published  work  among 
the  principal  medical  booksellers  of  the  United  States  on  the  usual 
trade  commissions,  the  Convention  would  doubtless  be  in  the  posses- 
sion of  a  modest  income  quite  sufficient  for  all  its  economic  needs. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  public  spirit  of  so  large,  so  varied  and  so 
respectable  a  body,  would  doutless  be  a  sufficient  guard  against  any 
tendency  to  enhance  unduly  the  profits  of  the  enterprise,  or  to  lower 
it  to  the  character  of  a  mercantile  speculation.  In  this  connection  it 
is  suggested  that  as  a  just  and  equitable  portion  of  the  income  from  the 
work,  a  moderate  copyright  royalty  or  license  fee  should  be  charged 
for  any  re-production  of  it  in  a  commentary  or  dispensatory. 
