3o8 
U.  S.  P.  IX  Revision. 
I  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(  May,  1920. 
lished  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  and 
reprints  very  generally  distributed,  so  that  the  country  could  see 
what  changes  were  proposed  in  advance  of  the  actual  publication 
of  the  book.  In  the  experience  of  the  last  committee,  it  was  shown 
that  any  extensive  publicity  of  proposed  changes  prior  to  this  point, 
would  be  premature.  During  the  actual  discussion  on  revision, 
the  work  would  be  prolonged  beyond  all  reasonable  time  if  the 
public  were  admitted  to  the  preliminary  committee  conferences, 
and  discussions  are  more  free  and  valuable  if  kept  within  the  sub- 
committees. The  experience  of  the  last  Revision  Committee  has 
shown  that  publication  at  this  stage  of  the  revision  gives  ample 
time  for  those  who  are  not  on  the  committee  to  give  valuable  criti- 
cism or  recommendations  and  this  feature  should  remain  a  part 
of  any  revision  scheme. 
Preparing  the  Manuscript. — Ample  time  having  been  allowed  for 
comments  from  the  committee  and  also  from  those  who  were  in- 
terested in  Pharmacopoeial  revision,  who  were  not  members  of  the 
committee,  but  had  access  to  the  public  abstracts,  these  were  assem- 
bled on  sheets  containing  the  latest  copy  of  the  proposed  text,  as 
submitted  to  the  General  Committee,  and  were  given  detailed  con- 
sideration by  the  chairman,  in  conference  with  the  different  sub- 
committee chairmen.  Those  which  were  found  of  vital  importance 
and  sufficiently  tested,  were  embodied  in  the  text.  The  manu- 
script was  now  made  up — every  title,  the  construction  of  sentences, 
capitalization,  punctuation,  and  other  editorial  detail  being  given  a 
final  polishing,  and  the  manuscript  sent  to  the  printer. 
Of  course,  before  this  time,  sample  pages  to  show  styles  of  type 
and  general  arrangement,  had  been  approved.  The  galley  proofs 
were  submitted  on  standard  size  paper  (8V2  X  11)  perforated  for 
binding,  and  were  clean  impressions  taken  from  a  press,  so  that 
they  were  perfectly  legible.  The  galley  was  now  sent  to  every 
member  of  the  Executive  Committee,  in  duplicate,  and  as  the  galleys 
were  returned  by  the  members  to  the  general  chairman,  the  com- 
ments were  assembled  in  the  chairman's  office  upon  one  set  of  galleys. 
These  comments  were  once  more  given  consideration  in  conference 
with  the  sub-committee  chairman,  and  corrected  copy  for  page 
proof  returned  to  the  printer.  Page  proof  in  duplicate  was  now 
submitted  to  every  member  of  the  General  Committee,  and  the 
returned  comments  from  the  General  Committee  once  more  assembled 
