128 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pbarm. 
\     March,  1911. 
This  bill  is  practically  a  duplicate  of  the  Cullom  bill  which  was 
considered  in  the  Senate  last  year,  and  as  now  worded  is  designed 
to  regulate  traffic  in  cocaine  and  other  habit-forming  drugs  by 
imposing  an  internal  revenue  tax  and  requiring  that  detailed  records 
of  all  sales  be  made  and  reported  to  the  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue  who  is  also  to  make  regulations  for  the  enforcement  of 
the  act. 
In  the  hearings  that  have  been  held  on  this  bill  it  was  generally 
admitted  that  the  abuse  of  habit-forming  drugs  had  spread  to  an 
alarming  extent,  in  the  last  20  or  30  years,  and  that  their  con- 
sumption, at  the  present  time,  was  not  accounted  for  by  any 
legitimate  use  to  which  they  could  be  put. 
It  is  also  agreed  that  the  only  way  by  which  the  several  State 
laws  regulating  the  sale  of  habit-forming  drugs  could  be  enforced 
was  by  having  an  authoritative  source  of  information  regarding  the 
sale,  in  a  large  way,  of  the  several  articles  that  are  involved. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  this  law,  or  any  law  of  a  similar  nature, 
will  entail  hardships  and  will  involve  the  expenditure  of  time  and 
money  on  the  part  of  those  engaged  in  the  several  branches  of  the 
drug  business.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  possibility  of  removing 
from  the  drug  trade  the  stigma  of  debasing  all  strata  of  society 
by  the  encouragement  of  drug  habits  is  one  that  should  and  no 
doubt  will  atone  for  all  the  trouble  and  expense  that  can  possibly 
be  involved. 
Public  Health  Service. — Legislation  looking  toward  the  pro- 
tection of  the  public  health  has  also  been  discussed  at  length  and 
some  progress  has  been  made  toward  the  solution  of  the  problems 
involved.  The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Interstate  and  Foreign 
Commerce,  indorsing  the  Mann  bill,  to  change  the  name  of  the 
Public  Health  and  Marine-Hospital  Service  to  the  Public  Health 
Service  and  defining  its  field  of  usefulness,  is  reprinted  in  the  Oil 
and  Paint  Reporter  (February  6,  1911,  p.  40)  and  pharmacists  who 
are  interested  in  the  progress  of  public  health  legislation  should 
read  this  report  and  consider  the  possibilities  involved. 
Ph.  Germ.  V. — In  Europe  the  new  ^'Deutsches  Arzneibuch  " 
has  been  probably  the  most  fruitful  topic  of  discussion.  This  book 
while  much  larger  than  any  of  its  predecessors  contains  but  a  total 
of  43  more  titles  than  the  Ph.  Germ.  IV.  It  represents  a  rather 
radical  change  in  the  method  of  revision  in  that  it  is  the  direct 
product  of  the  "  Reichs  Gesundheitsamt,"  being  compiled  by  the 
