International  Standards. 
[  Am.  Jour.  Fharni. 
I     Januarj-,  1903. 
all  classes  of  drugs  and  preparations  and  be  capable  of  displacing 
the  various  national  Pharmacopoeias.  It  was  expected  to  be  in  fact, 
as  well  as  in  theory,  a  Pharmacopoeia  for  all  nations. 
Not  until  the  meeting  of  the  Seventh  International  Congress, 
held  at  Chicago,  in  1893,  was  it  proposed  that  the  International 
Pharmacopoeia  be  restricted  to  one  including  only  the  more  potent 
remedies.  This  more  practical  idea,  though  heartily  endorsed  by 
the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  never  materialized,  and 
at  the  Ninth  International  Congress,  Paris,  1 900,  the  committee 
having  this  project  in  hand  evidently  made  no  report.  There  had, 
however,  been  considerable  comment  and  discussion  on  the  project, 
among  others,  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Asso- 
ciation, Baltimore,  1898. 
At  the  International  Medical  Congress,  Moscow,  1898,  Professor 
Tschirch,  of  Berne,  Switzerland,  proposed  that  a  conference  of 
official  delegates  be  convened,  at  the  invitation  of  one  of  the  Euro- 
pean Governments,  with  a  view  of  establishing  some  international 
standards  that  would  be  acceptable  to  all  concerned.  In  the  same 
year  Professor  Rommelaere  communicated  to  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Medicine  of  Belgium  some  views  on  the  same  subject.  This  com- 
munication, after  considerable  discussion,  was  referred  to  a  committee 
to  formulate  some  plan  by  which  the  desired  result  could  be  brought 
about.  This  committee  in  its  report  acknowledged  the  impractica- 
bility of  substituting  an  international  for  the  various  national  Phar- 
macopoeias, but  at  the  same  time  called  attention  to  the  possibilities 
of  danger  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  wide  variation  in  strength  of 
the  more  potent  remedies.  This  element  of  danger  the  committee 
proposed  to  obviate,  by  a  mutual  agreement,  among  the  various 
authorities,  to  unite  on  uniform  strengths  and  methods  of  preparing 
the  more  active  preparations. 
At  the  first  meeting  of  the  Ninth  International  Congress,  Prof. 
A.  Tschirch,  of  Berne,  Switzerland,  proposed  that  instead  of  an 
International  Pharmacopoeia,  an  international  conference  be  con- 
vened to  discuss  and  propose  a  system  of  international  standards 
for  adoption  in  the  various  national  Pharmacopoeias. 
This  proposition,  after  some  debate,  was  referred  to  a  special 
committee  to  report  at  a  subsequent  meeting.  At  the  fourth  session, 
this  committee  reported  a  plan  for  outlining  the  work  of  such  an 
international  conference,  and  to  give  it  an  authoritative  or  official 
