Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
August,  19 18.  J 
Correspondence. 
617 
Procaine  for  novocaine. 
Procaine  nitrate  for  novocaine  nitrate. 
Plicnylcinchoninic  Acid  for  atophan. 
Under  the  authority  of  the  Trading  with  the  Enemy  Act  and 
with  the  advice  of  the  Subcommittee  on  Synthetic  Drugs  of  the  Na- 
tional Research  Council,  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  has  pro- 
vided for  the  manufacture  in  this  country  of  the  important  syn- 
thetic drugs  which  before  the  war  were  imported  from  abroad, 
chiefly  from  Germany. 
To  insure  the  production  of  the  synthetic  drugs  urgently  needed, 
the  Federal  Trade  Commission  had  to  make  it  worth  while  for 
manufacturers  to  undertake  the  preparation  of  these  articles  with- 
out permitting  their  cost  to  become  prohibitive  but  rather  approach- 
ing the  prices  current  before  the  war.  This  was  accomplished  by 
granting  licenses  good  for  the  life  of  the  patents  under  which  such 
drugs  are  made  and  thus  making  a  permanent  investment  for  their 
production  profitable.  Partly  to  insure  for  manufacturers  a  market 
for  their  products  after  the  war  and  in  large  part  inspired  by  the 
idea  of  encouraging  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  American 
industry  in  these  important  articles,  the  commission  wisely  decided 
that  American  houses  should  be  put  on  the  same  footing  as  the 
foreign  houses  for  the  after-the-war  competition  by  imposing  on  all 
licenses  the  obligation  to  use  new,  official  names  for  the  articles, 
names  which  after  the  war  will  be  open  to  all  competitors,  domestic 
and  foreign. 
Obviously  if  these  names  are  once  in  common  use  the  exclusive 
rights  of  the  foreign  houses  and  their  agents  of  using  after  the  war 
the  old  established  trade-marked  names  will  not  seriously  handicap 
the  American  firms,  and  all  competitors  will  be  on  the  same  footing, 
with  the  advantage  only  to  those  who  can  produce  most  cheaply  the 
better  article. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  American  physician  in  final  instance  is  the 
arbiter  who  can  put  this  wise  plan  into  operation  and  establish  the 
new  names  firmly  by  prescribing  these  remedies  by  their  new  official 
names.  However,  the  adoption  of  these  names  by  physicians  will 
depend  very  largely  on  the  pharmacist' 's  familiarity  with  them.  Un- 
less the  physician  is  confident  that  the  pharmacist  to  whom  his  pre- 
scription is  taken  is  familiar  with  the  official  names,  he  will  feel 
constrained  to  use  the  old,  proprietary  names.    The  pharmacist, 
