Km'^;S™^-}Pharmacopceial  Assays  of  Drugs  and  Galenicals.  221 
Of  the  same  medicines  different  individuals  require  different  doses  to 
yield  the  same  effect.  And  even  the  same  individual  requires  differ- 
ent quantities  at  different  times  and  under  differing  conditions,  and 
the  real  dose  is  that  variable  quantity  that  yields  the  peculiar  effect  of 
the  agent.  How  then  can  the  physician  avail  himself  of  any  degree 
of  critical  accuracy  beyond  that  practical  uniformity  of  strength  and 
quality  upon  which  his  experience  is  based,  or  any  degree  of  critical 
accuracy  which  is  beyond  the  limit  of  accuracy  determined  for  him 
by  variable  individual  susceptibility?  All  that  is  true  and  sound  on 
this  point  is  that  a  practical  degree  of  uniformity  is  all  that  can  be 
attained  by  the  Pharmacopoeia  without  any  such  system  of  elaborate 
assaying  as  would  tend  to  throw  this  important  interest  of  the  Phar- 
macopoeia into  the  hands  of  experts,  or  would-be  experts.  The  line 
of  wise  action  seems  not  difficult  to  draw  here.  If  the  descriptions 
and  tests  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  can  be  improved  without  carrying 
them  beyond  the  reach  of  educated  pharmaceutical  or  medical  skill 
in  application,  this  should  be  done,  applying  assay  processes  only 
to  such  drugs  as  have  easily  separable  active  principles.  Then  a 
a  very  few  preparations,  such  as  those  of  Opium,  Nux  Vomica,  and 
perhaps  Cinchona,  might  wisely  have  their  strength  adjusted  by 
these  assays.  There  has  never  been  a  time  within  the  forty  years' 
experience  of  the  writer,  when  officinal  drugs  were  more  accessible 
to  those  who  would  take  the  trouble  to  look  for  them,  and  be  willing 
to  pay  for  them  ;  and  to  those  who  will  not  take  the  proper  pains, 
nor  pay  adequate  prices,  the  Pharmacopoeia  would  continue  to 
appeal  in  vain,  even  by  the  most  elaborate  system  of  assays  and 
adjustments,  if  such  a  system  was  practicable. 
PHARMACOPCEIAL  ASSAYS  OF  DRUGS  AND 
GALENICALS. 
By  John  M.  Maisch. 
Read  before  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting, 
April  22. 
Discussions  on  the  standardization  of  drugs  have  of  late  years 
claimed  much  attention  in  medical  and  pharmaceutical  literature. 
The  object  of  the  present  paper  is  not  to  review  the  entire  field  cov- 
ered by  the  arguments,  but  merely  to  present  a  few  considerations, 
which  have  not  heretofore  been  dwelled  upon,  or  which,  in  the 
writer's  opinion,  have  not  received  the  consideration  they  deserve, 
