Am.  Tour.  Pharm.  \ 
April,  19 1 8.  ■» 
Correspondence. 
307 
striking  features  were  less  pain,  the  unusually  clean  appearance  of 
the  wound,  absence  of  pus,  and  the  redness  of  the  whole  of  the 
tissues,  the  muscle  in  particular.  In  the  same  treatment  of  larger 
and  deeper  wounds  a  2.5  per  cent,  solution  of  the  bismuth  paste  in 
soft  green  soap  was  found  to  be  quite  satisfactory.  Cases  of  pene- 
trating wounds  of  the  knee  joint  were  treated  by  this  method,  the 
joints  being  irrigated  and  the  capsule  and  external  wounds  closed. 
The  patients  did  very  well.  In  cases  of  gas  gangrene  the  results 
were  usually  good.  The  points  claimed  for  the  soap  solution  dress- 
ings are  that  they  clean  up  a  wound  quickly,  the  dressings  are  much 
les9  painful  than  ordinary  dressings,  there  is  a  saving  of  labor,  as 
the  dressings  need  only  be  changed  every  three  or  four  days,  and 
the  solution  is  easily  procured,  easily  made  and  inexpensive* 
(Lancet,  London,  reprinted  from  The  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association.) 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
American  Journal  of  Pharmacy, 
145  North  10th  St., 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Gentlemen:  The  enclosed  is  submitted  for  publication. 
At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  board  of  directors  of  the  Philadelphia 
Drug  Exchange,  attention  was  called,  by  Mr.  H.  K.  Mulford,  to  the 
fact  that  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Society  had  worked  out 
(Lancet,  Nov.  17,  1917,  766)  changes  in  the  formulas  of  the 
British  Pharmacopoeia  in  order  to  reduce  the  consumption  of  sugar 
and  glycerin,  that  these  modified  formulas  had  been  officially  en- 
dorsed and  adopted  by  the  Pharmacopoeia  Committee  of  the  Gen- 
eral Medical  Council  of  Great  Britain  for  the  duration  of  the  war, 
and  that  this  body  had  temporarily  withdrawn  from  the  British 
Pharmacopoeia  directions  for  the  use  of  sugar  and  glycerin  in  certain 
preparations. 
It  is,  of  course,  an  open  question,  whether  or  not  such  a  revolu- 
tionary step  as  modifying  the  U.  S.  P.  and  N.  F.  formulas  to  con- 
serve the  national  supply  of  sugar,  glycerin  and  alcohol  is  necessary 
at  this  time,  as  our  natural  resources  are  so  large,  but  it  is  undoubt- 
edly true  that,  by  reason  of  the  enormous  demands  made  upon  us, 
from  abroad,  sugar,  glycerin  and  alcohol  are  becoming  increasingly 
