Current  Literature. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      April,  1914. 
tainly  need  to  be  accepted  with  a  considerable  amount  of  reservation. 
Copies  of  the  resolutions  passed  at  the  meeting  were  furnished  to  the 
State  Authorities  of  the  Federal  Department  of  Agriculture  and  the 
Revision  Committee  of  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  and 
National  Formulary. 
The  following  were  the  actual  resolutions  adopted : 
"  Whereas,  The  market  is  flooded  with  various  mongrel  soaps, 
masquerading  as  Castile  Soap ;  and 
"  Whereas,  The  Designation  Castile  Soap  has  long  been  recog- 
nized as  and  held  to  refer  to  U.  S.  P.  Soap ;  therefore  be  it 
"  Resolved,  That  we  recommend  the  adoption  of  such  State  and 
National  Standards  as  will  forbid  the  use  of  the  term  '  Castile  '  as 
applied  to  any  soap  other  than  the  U.  S.  P.  Soap ;  and  be  it  further 
"  Resolved,  That  we  recommend  the  incorporation  of  the  term 
Castile  Soap  as  a  synonym  for  Sapo  in  the  forthcoming  Pharma- 
copoeia ;  and  be  it  further 
"  Resolved,  That  copies  of  these  resolutions  be  furnished  to  & 
State  Authorities,  the  Federal  Department  of  Agriculture,  and  th: 
Revision  Committee  of  the  U.  S.  P.  and  N.  F." 
Now  we  question  very  much  whether  the  description  "  Castile 
Soap  "  is  one  that  should  be  maintained  at  all,  and  in  connection  at 
any  rate  with  British  pharmacy  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
name  "  Castile  Soap  "  as  a  synonym  for  hard  soap  was  abandoned 
in  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  of  1898,  although  it  was  official  in  the 
Pharmacopoeia  of  1885. 
The  hard  soaps  of  various  Pharmacopoeias  are  described  in  a 
variety  of  ways,  and  in  one  case  only  does  the  title  indicate  that  the 
source  should  be  Spanish,  namely,  the  Russian  Pharmacopoeia,  which 
describes  hard  soap  as  Sapo  Hispanicus  Albus. 
The  following  are  the  titles  employed  in  the  various  Pharma- 
copoeias, and  we  see  no  reason  why  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  title 
should  not  be  one  generally  adopted : 
In  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  simply  Sapo ;  Belgian 
Pharmacopoeia,  Sapo  Officinalis  ;  Danish  and  Dutch,  Sapo  Medicatus  ; 
Hungarian,  Sapo  Venetus ;  Norwegian,  Sapo  Albus  Oleaceus ; 
Spanish,  Jabon  de  Sosa ;  Swedish,  Sapo  Medicatus ;  Swiss,  Sapo 
Oleaceus. 
It  is  a  pity  that  in  certain  works  of  reference,  notwithstanding 
that  the  synonym  Castile  Soap  has  been  officially  dropped,  the  soap 
should  be  so  described  or  referred  to.   For  example,  in  Squire's  Com- 
