AmApS"'i9i4.rm'}  United  States  Public  Health  Service.  161 
This  work  of  abstracting  the  literature  relating  to  the  Pharma- 
copoeia of  the  United  States  and  the  National  Formulary  was  under- 
taken at  the  request  of  the  board  of  trustees  of  the  United  States 
Pharmacopoeial  Convention,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  and  the  compilations  have  appeared  in  the  form  of 
bulletins  covering  the  literature  of  the  calendar  years  from  1905  to 
date.  This  work  has  received  high  commendation  from  physicians, 
pharmacists  and  chemists  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  eminent 
pharmacognosist,  A.  Tschirch,  in  commenting  on  this  work,  admits 
that  practical  Americans  were  the  first  to  recognize  the  importance 
of  conserving  intellectual  energy  in  connection  with  the  revision  of 
the  pharmacopoeia  and  comments  favorably  on  the  comprehensive- 
ness of  the  "  Digest  of  Comments."  Pharmaceutical  and  medical 
journals  generally  have  commented  favorably  on  the  several  bulletins 
and  have  uniformly  voiced  the  opinion  that  these  bulletins  represent 
a  work  of  great  utility  and  because  of  the  fact  that  they  bring  to- 
gether with  remarkable  clearness  the  public  comments  on  pharma- 
cology and  materia  medica  and  thus  form  an  index  of  the  work  of 
the  year  such  as  is  not  published  elsewhere. 
In  addition  to  the  work  done  in  connection  with  the  pharma- 
copoeial revision  and  the  standardization  of  drugs  and  preparations, 
there  has  also  been  published  as  Public  Health  Bulletin  No.  56  a 
"  Digest  of  the  Laws  and  Regulations  in  Force  in  the  United  States 
Relating  to  the  Possession,  Use,  Sale,  and  Manufacture  of  Poisons 
and  Habit-Forming  Drugs."  This  is  the  first  complete  analytical 
compilation  of  the  laws  on  this  subject,  and  provisions  have  been 
made  to  keep  the  material  up  to  date  by  the  publication  of  new 
legislation  in  Public  Health  Reports  and  the  reprinting  of  this  mate- 
rial from  time  to  time  as  separates.  The  first  of  these  reprints, 
covering  the  legislation  enacted  during  1912  and  1913,  is  now  being 
distributed. 
As  an  illustration  of  the  relative  importance  of  matters  phar- 
maceutical to  public  health  work,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  of  the 
90  bulletins  published  by  the  Hygienic  Laboratory,  no  less  than  39 
are  of  direct  interest  to  the  pharmacist,  or  have  some  distinct  bear- 
ing on  the  practice  of  pharmacy.  In  addition  to  the  7  volumes  on 
the  "  Digest  of  Comments,"  this  list  includes  the  very  popular  bul- 
letin of  122  pages  on  the  Changes  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  eighth  decennial  revision,  compiled  by 
Doctors  Reid  Hunt  and  Murray  Gait  Motter,  published  in  1905. 
