Advances  in  Pharmacy. 
/Am  .Jour.  Pharm. 
<■     March,  1918. 
New  Zealand  spinach  from  Tetragonia  Expansa,  which  is  some- 
times grown  and  substituted  for  spinach  as  being  more  hardy  than 
the  latter. 
U do. — This  new  vegetable,  which  is  coming  into  use,  consists  of 
the  blanched  young  shoots  of  a  member  of  the  spikenard  or  ginseng 
family,  Aralia  cor  data.  It  is  tender  and  succulent  and  preferably 
used  as  a  basis  for  salads. 
QUARTERLY  REVIEW  ON  THE  ADVANCES 
IN  PHARMACY. 
By  John  K.  Thum,  Ph.M.,  Lankenau  Hospital,  Philadelphia. 
It  must  be  decidedly  encouraging  to  physicians  in  this  country  to 
know  that  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  the  well-known  drug  "  sal- 
varsan  "  under  the  name  arsphenamine  is  now  permitted  and  has 
governmental  sanction.  The  Federal  Trade  Commission  has  given 
orders  for  the  licensing  of  three  American  firms  to  produce  and  sell 
this  product.  The  Trade  Commission's  action  was  taken  under  Sec- 
tion 10  of  the  Trading  With  the  Enemy  Act  under  the  direction  of 
Commissioner  Fort,  on  recommendation  of  Messrs.  McDonald, 
Rogers  and  Phelps,  who  are  in  charge  of  granting  such  licenses. 
The  medical  profession  also  has  cause  for  congratulation  in  that  the 
U.  S.  Public  Health  Service  will  have  supervision  over  the  manufac- 
ture of  arsphenamine,  for  which  it  has  prepared  rules  and  standards 
to  which  the  manufacturers  must  conform.  This  authority  has 
been  given  to  the  Public  Health  Service  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  the  strict  observance  of  the  rules  and  standards  are  a 
condition  for  obtaining  such  a  license. 
In  a  paper  with  the  title  "  Simple  Versus  Combined  Drugs,"  Van 
Leeuwen,  of  the  Pharmacological  Institute  at  Utrecht,  enters  pro- 
test against  recent  publications  by  Biirgi  and  others  who  make  the 
assertion  that  the  potential  energy  of  certain  drugs  can  be  augmented 
by  combining  them.  These  premises  are  purely  theoretical,  he  says, 
and  have  not  been  confirmed  by  practical  experience.  This  seems 
to  be  a  fling  at  the  so-called  synergistic  action  of  drugs. 
Cushny,  in  his  "  Pharmacology,"  speaks  of  this  general  belief  by 
physicians  in  such  action,  but  he  asserts  that  as  yet  no  satisfactory 
researches  on  this  subject  have  been  carried  out  to  prove  or  disprove 
