^™jmir'im*™' }  Progress  in  Pharmacy.  283 
the  next  edition  of  the  Pharmacopoeia.  Physicians  frequently  accept 
at  their  face  value  claims  made  by  interested  persons  regarding  the 
therapeutic  action  of  certain  drugs,  and  there  is  a  tendency  on  the 
part  of  certain  doctors  to  prescribe  such  drugs,  even  after  they 
have  been  admitted  to  the  official  standard  and  consequently  in- 
cluded in  text-books. 
Another  editorial  (/.  Am.  M.  Ass.,  191 1,  v.  56,  pp.  1198-1199) 
in  discussing  the  standardization  of  digitalis,  asserts  that  one  of 
the  greatest  handicaps  to  exact  drug  therapeutics  is  the  fact  that 
impressions  "  either  of  the  physician  or  of  the  patient  play  such 
an  important  part.  Many  other  branches  of  medicine  have  been 
put  on  a  truly  scientific  basis  as  a  result  of  careful  quantitative 
work,  in  either  the  laboratory  or  the  clinic,  or  in  both,  but  in  drug 
therapeutics,  such  expressions  as  "  the  drug  seemed  to  do  good," 
are  constantly  used  without  the  slightest  attempt  to  measure  any 
tangible  effect,  or  tO'  compare  the  case  under  treatment  with  one 
running  a  natural  course. 
A  suggestion  of  the  widespread  confidence  in  so-called  clinical  " 
observations  is  embodied  in  the  remarks  of  a  reviewer  in  the 
British  Medical  Journal,  who,  in  dealing  with  the  fifth  edition  of 
Professor  Cushny's  book,  says: 
We  cannot  close  the  book  without  feeling  how  great  would 
be  the  advantage  to  medicine  if  such  an  authority  as  Professor 
Cushny  could  be  provided  with  access  to  the  wards  of  a  hospital, 
so  that  his  profound  pharmacological  knowledge  should  receive 
more  of  the  clinical  '  salt,'  which  could  not  fail  to  render  it  the 
more  serviceable." — Chem.  and  Drug.,  191 1,  v.  78,  March  18,  p.  50. 
Scope  of  the  German  Pharmacopceia. — Ernst  Gilg,  in  com- 
menting on  the  drugs  in  the  Ph.  Germ.  V,  asserts  that  the  one 
exception  that  he  has  to  make  is  that  the  revisers  of  the  Pharma- 
copoeia, in  selecting  articles  to  be  included  in  the  book,  have  shown 
a  woeful  lack  of  system.  He  expresses  the  belief  that  it  is  about 
time  that  books  of  the  importance  of  pharmacopoeias  be  divorced 
from  personal  likes  and  dislikes,  and  that  the  scope  at  least  be 
based  on  broad  general  principles  that  should  be  followed  through- 
out.— Ber.  d.  pharm.  Gesellsch.,  Berk,  191 1,  v.  21,  p.  11. 
Importance  of  the  Pharmacopceia. — Oscar  Oldberg,  in  an 
address  on  the  importance  of  the  pharmacist  to  mankind,  makes 
a  number  of  reasonable  and  sane  statements  regarding  the  scope 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia.    He  points  out  that  the  very  life  of  pharmacy 
