^"Mirch'mr"^™'}  Biological  Standardization  of  Dmgs.  99 
of  his  skill  as  an  aid  to  that  of  the  physician  to  the  cure  of  the 
sick. 
The  committee  in  charge  of  the  revision  of  the  recent  editions 
of  the  pharmacopoeia  have  clearly  recognized  the  need  for  suit- 
able standards  especially  for  the  more  potent  drugs  in  order  to 
eliminate  the  danger  and  inaccuracy  in  the  administration  of 
remedial  agents.  Thus  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  and  eight  re- 
visions of  the  Pharmacopoeia  we  find  tests  and  assay  processes 
introduced  while  in  the  Eighth  revision  a  further  notable  advance 
was  made,  in  the  adoption  of  a  standard  for  diphtheria  antitoxic 
serum.  There  are  a  number  of  very  important  drugs  long  used 
in  medicine  and  more  recently  also  certain  biological  products  for 
which  chemical  tests  or  assay  methods  are  not  available  owing  to 
the  fact  that  the  chemistry  of  these  substances  either  is  not  known 
or  they  are  of  such  a  character  that  quantitative  m,ethods  can 
not  be  successfully  employed.  For  these,  biological  tests  and 
standards  have  been  proposed  although  excepting  that  for  diph- 
theria antitoxic  serum  none  have  as  yet  been  officially  adopted. 
The  recent  Pharmacopoeial  convention  however  adopted  a  general 
principle  reading  as  follows : 
"  It  is  recommended  that  biological  tests  or  assays,  when  ac- 
curate and  reliable,  may  be  admitted.^' 
In  the  group  of  drugs  for  which  chemical  standards  are  not 
at  the  present  time  available  are  digitalis,  strophanthus,  convallaria, 
squills,  apocynum,  preparations  of  the  suprarenal  glands,  ergot,  and 
cannabis  indica. 
It  is  somewhat  surprising  in  view  of  the  great  importance  of 
some  of  these  drugs  that,  although  biological  tests  were  proposed 
nearly  50  years  ago,  no  practical  application  was  miade  until 
1898.  I  am  informed  that  Professor  Cushny  first  suggested  such 
standardization  especially  for  the  digitalis  group  but  the  first  paper 
relating  definitely  to  the  subject  was  one  in  October,  1898,  by 
Houghton  who  worked  in  Cushny's  laboratory.  Since  Houghton's 
paper  the  subject  of  Biological  Standardization  has  attracted  a 
good  deal  of  attention  from  pharmacologists  and  more  recently 
also  from  progressive  drug  manufacturers  and  pharmacists. 
The  drug,  or  rather  group  of  drugs,  upon  which  the  most 
work  has  been  done  is  the  digitalis  group,  it  being  generally  con- 
ceded that  a  method  applicable  to  one  member  as  digitalis  itself 
would  be  applical)le  equally  to  strophanthus  or  squills.    As  a  result 
