470  Revision  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia.  {Am-<S^arm- 
cinchona  flava,  dismissed  as  the  title  cinchona  now  includes  the  bark 
of  cinchona  calisaya,  cinchona  officinalis  and  of  hybrids  of  these  and 
other  cinchonas.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  alkaloidal  requirement 
for  all  official  cinchonas  has  been  increased  to  five  per  cent,  total 
alkaloids  which  conforms  with  the  best  grades  of  cinchona  now  in  the 
market.  None  of  the  vegetable  drugs  dismissed  were  sufficiently 
used  to  be  retained,  and  the  following  should  also  have  been 
excused  from  the  official  list  as  they  would  not  be  missed,  cascarilla, 
chelidonium,  illicum,  melissa  and  sabina. 
It  is  not  a  new  proposition  but  a  well-founded  one,  that  the 
Pharmacopoeia  should  not  recognize  any  drug  that  is  not  prescribed 
in  the  crude  state  without  introducing  some  official  preparation  of 
that  drug.  This  would  exclude  caulophyllum,  inula  and  marru- 
bium  of  which  fluid  extracts  should  be  official  and  staphisagria, 
Pulsatilla  and  toxicodendron  of  which  tinctures  should  have  been 
introduced. 
Inspissated  ox-gall  is  the  only  drug  of  animal  origin  dismissed 
and  this  was  unnecessary  as  the  purified  ox-gall  answers  all  require- 
ments. 
Fifty-one  preparations  have  been  dismissed.  The  entire  class  of 
abstracts  have  been  abstracted.  This  grand  experiment  of  the 
Pharmacopoeia  of  1880,  proved  a  most  miserable  failure.  It  must 
not  be  lost  sight  of,  that  those  who  are  to  use  the  Pharmacopoeia, 
are  practical  medical  practitioners  and  pharmacists  and  that  their 
desires  and  needs  must  be  supplied  and  not  theories  and  experi- 
ments offered  in  their  stead.  They  want  powdered  extracts  and 
will  prescribe  them  and  use  them  daily  and  hourly.  The  Committee 
knows  this,  yet,  with  the  exceptions  of  extract  of  opium  and  extract 
of  nux  vomica,  this  demand  has  been  unheeded.  The  consumption 
of  dry  or  powdered  extracts  of  aconite,  belladonna,  cannabis,  col- 
chicum,  conium,  gentian,  hyoscyamus,  stramonium,  etc.,  is  enormous. 
Was  the  working  out  of  formulas  for  these  too  non-scientific,  too 
practical  to  engage  the  attention  of  the  Committee  ?  Manufacturers 
would  most  likely  have  furnished  the  necessary  information. 
Acetum  lobeliae  and  acetum  sanguinariae  both  excellent  prepara- 
tions for  exhibiting  the  action  of  their  respective  drugs,  having 
become  neglected  by  the  medical  fraternity,  are  dismissed.  The 
dismissing  of  infusion  of  kousso,  was  surely  an  error.  The  action 
of  this  drug  is  admittedly  largely  mechanical  and  the  Pharmacopoeia 
