A.m.  Jour.  Phartu.  I 
January,  1903.  / 
International  Standards. 
not  find  favor  in  this  country  is  the  recommendation  that  both 
liquids,  as  well  as  solids,  be  weighed.  The  next  is  the  recommenda- 
tion that  the  potent  tinctures  be  made  with  dilute  alcohol,  the 
strength  of  which  is  placed  at  70  per  cent,  by  volume.  The  objec- 
tion to  this  recommendation  will  probably  be  the  excessive  high 
cost  of  alcohol,  due  to  the  high  internal-revenue  tax. 
The  actual  strength,  or  rather  the  proportionate  strength,  of  the 
different  galenical  preparations  should  meet  with  general  favor. 
Let  us  review,  for  instance,  the  tinctures  included  in  this  list  of 
potent  remedies.  The  general  proposition  places  the  strength  of 
the  potent  tinctures  at  uniformly  10  per  cent.  The  advantage  of 
this  is  that  the  resulting  tincture  can  readily  be  made  to  represent 
the  soluble  extractive  of  the  respective  drug,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  bears  a  definite,  uniform  and  easily  remembered  relation  to  the 
drug,  so  that  a  physician,  knowing  the  dose  of  the  drug,  can  readily 
calculate  the  corresponding  dose  of  the  tincture.  The  variability  of 
our  own  U.S.P.  tinctures  is  well  illustrated  by  this  table.  A  com- 
parative study  of  these  figures  would  appear  to  indicate  that  no 
concerted  attempt  had  ever  been  made  to  arrange  these  preparations 
according  to  any  fixed  rule,  either  as  to  drug  content  or  dose  of 
finished  product. 
Tincture  of  opium  is  calculated  on  the  permissible  minimum  con- 
tent of  morphine.  This  accounts  for  the  abnormal  figure  given  for 
the  U.S.P.  preparation  (13  per  cent.).  Some  of  the  other  figures 
are  of  course  only  approximate — U.S.P.  tincture  of  nux  vomica  and 
B.P.  tincture  of  belladonna,  for  example,  for  which  the  respective 
Pharmacopoeias  give  alkaloidal  strengths. 
The  point  we  wish  to  call  particular  attention  to  is  the  wide  varia- 
tion in  the  strengths  of  these  various  tinctures.  A  very  little 
thought  on  the  possible  results  of  a  misunderstanding  or  a  mistake 
will  readily  convince  any  one  of  the  necessity  of  more  general  con- 
formity to  some  one  standard  strength. 
The  wisdom  of  the  selection  made  by  the  Brussels  Conference 
must  also  be  conceded,  when  we  realize  that  more  than  55  per  cent, 
of  the  tinctures  included  in  the  above  list  conform  to  the  standard 
of  strength  adopted  by  the  International  Conference. 
As  to  the  necessary  changes  in  our  own  Pharmacopoeia,  there  are 
but  two  preparations'  in  which  there  could  be  any  objection  to  the 
proposed  change,  on  the  plea  that  a  change  might  prove  dangerous. 
