382  Revision  oj  ike  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia.  { ^"jJne^^Q'Jo: 
resubmitted  to  the  committee  from  whence  they  had  come,  but 
more  often  the  corrections  were  of  a  minor  character  and  the  mono- 
graphs would  be  finally  revised  by  the  Executive  Committee. 
Having  passed  this  group  of  censors,  the  revised  or  approved  mono- 
graphs would  next  be  sent  out  to  the  General  Committee  of  Revi- 
sion, where  they  wxre  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  and  criticism  of 
many  who  had  not  before  seen  them.  Again  the  procedure  of  cor- 
recting minor  errors  or  recommitting  was  followed  and  the  mono- 
graph, having  reached  this  advanced  stage  and  having  been  finally 
approved,  was  put  aside  by  the  Chairman  of  the  General  Committee 
of  Revision,  until  the  entire  manuscript  was  ready  for  the  printer. 
During  the  Executive  Committee  and  General  -Committee 
stages  of  the  evolution  of  these  texts,  the  mandate  of  the  Conven- 
tion regarding  publicity  was  heeded,  by  submitting  to  the  numerous 
pharmaceutical,  medical  and  chemical  journals  lists  of  all  proposed 
changes  in  abstract.  These  proposed  changes  were  also  widely 
circulated  among  the  manufacturing  firms  of  the  country,  thus 
calling  in  as  an  auxiliary  a  great  body  of  interested  and  experienced 
scientific  workers  who  performed  services  of  great  value  without 
adding  to  the  cost  of  the  work. 
One  of  the  burning  questions  occupying  the  attention  of  the 
members  of  the  Revision  Committee  themselves,  and  interfering 
to  a  certain  extent  with  the  efficiency  of  their  work  through  pressure 
from  the  outside,  was  the  query:  How  long  is  the  revision  going 
to  take?  Such  a  factor  should  never  enter  into  a  problem  of  this 
kind.  For  several  decades  each  succeeding  revision  has  taken  a 
little  longer  than  the  last,  for  the  reasons  which  are  clearly  apparent 
to  a  rational  unprejudiced  observer.  Under  the  present  methods 
of  procedure,  in  which  practically  all  of  the  work  is  carried  on  by 
mail  in  the  interests  of  economy,  it  may  always  be  expected  that  a 
revision  will  require  from  three  to  six  years.  When  the  Conven- 
tion wishes  a  more  expeditious  handling  of  the  work,  it  can  easily 
obtain  results  by  authorizing  a  large  enough  expenditure  of  funds 
to  enable  personal  conferences  to  take  the  place  of  long  drawn  out 
arguments  and  discussions  by  correspondence  and  in  the  interest 
of  scientific  efficiency  by  authorizing  the  establishment  of  a  central 
laboratory  where  all  scientific  problems  can  be  worked  out,  at  least 
in  a  preliminary  way,  without  having  to  wait  for  the  convenience 
of  those  who  are  doing  the  work  largely  as  a  labor  of  love  and  with 
