200 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
public papers of the election of delegates to represent the 
State of Pennsylvania in the general Convention for revising 
the National Pharmacopoeia, whether any thing has been done 
by our apothecaries in relation to the contemplated objects of 
this assembly. Curiosity is awakened in us to know if a com- 
mittee from the College has been, or is likely to be appointed, 
to assist in a work which we regard as of the highest utility 
to themselves, and immediately connected with the interests 
of their profession. In the same curious spirit we would ask, 
if they have no suggestions of their own to make in reference 
to the improvement of some of the processes of the present 
standard? Whether, as practical pharmaceutists, their every 
day experience in the prosecution of their duties has not con- 
vinced them, supposing they have given a fair trial by rigidly 
adhering to the methods prescribed in the Pharmacopoeia, of 
the possibility of amending some of them with advantage, 
and whether they have not perceived there were deficiencies, 
which they, as practical men, could best supply? 
The American Pharmacopoeia has been of great utility in 
dispelling some of the mists of ignorance, which at the period 
of its adoption, in 1820, obscured the knowledge of many 
important pharmaceutic preparations, and has since paved the 
way for more enlightened views regarding this branch of 
science; nevertheless, it cannot be said to have attained per- 
fection; just then emerging from the infancy of the art in 
this country, it was adequate to all our wants, but our greater 
experience, and the many improvements and discoveries in 
medicine since, render us sensible of its defects. It is farthest 
from our wish to disparage the abilities of the very eminent 
medical gentlemen, the joint production of whose labors has 
been a national work, generally recognised as the standard 
for the various medicinal formulae employed in the curative 
art, suited to the wants of an American public, but we cannot 
refrain from expressing our opinion, that the publication of a 
work, destined for the use of apothecaries, as a guide for their 
officinal preparations, needs the assistance of a respectable 
representation from that body, to give it a character that will 
