422  Standard  Suri>ical  Dressings.        (Am.  jour.  Phaim. 
^  (  September,  1911. 
long  cotton  fibre,  fully  bleached  and  absorbent,  of  soft  finish,  and 
upon  extraction  with  acidulated  water  (two'  per  cent,  hydrochloric 
acid)  of  not  more  than  one  per  cent  residue,  and  the  reaction  shall 
show  no  reaction  for  starch,  soap,  dextrin,  glue  or  other  filling. 
The  object  of  the  foregoing  test — extraction  with  acidulated 
water — is  to  prevent  the  addition  of  starch,  soap,  dextrin,  or  glue 
for  making  weight,  increasing  the  apparent  size  of  thread,  etc. 
This  requirement  would  seem  to  be  about  as  far  as  any  standard 
could  be  expected  to  reach ;  indeed,  the  great  variation  in  the  require- 
ments of  the  surgeon  and  the  manifold  mechanical  household 
uses  of  gauze  create  a  legitimate  demand  for  a  greatly  varying 
material. 
Mr.  Geo.  M.  Beringer,  Jr.,  in  a  paper  heretofore  cited,  raises 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  Pharmacopoeial  recognition  of  medi- 
cated gauzes  and  surgical  dressings  would  be  a  mistake.  He 
states  that  it  has  been  hinted  that  the  pharmacist  has  not  the  facili- 
ties and  training  necessary  for  the  preparation  of  surgical  dress- 
ings, and  he  urges  that  this  arraignment  is  not  complimentary  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  American  pharmacist.  He  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  pharmacists  of  Germany,  Austria,  Sweden,  Belgium, 
and  elsewhere  prepare  such  preparations  from  formulas  in  their 
respective  pharmacopoeias. 
To  my  mind  there  is  no  question  but  that  the  pharmacist  has  the 
intelligence  and  perhaps  the  training  necessary  for  the  careful  prep- 
aration of  surgical  dressings.  It  is  not  a  question  of  can  he,  but  will 
he  take  the  care  to  properly  prepare  these  dressings. 
I  have  discussed  this  question  at  some  length  in  a  previous  paper, 
in  which  the  question  was  raised  as  to  the  relative  fitness  of  the  sur- 
geon, the  pharmacist  and  the  manufacturer  as  makers  and  purveyors 
of  surgical  material.  In  this  paper  I  stated  that  we  may  well  claim 
for  the  American  physician  the  highest  of  honors,  we  should  all 
reverence  the  skill  and  genius  of  the  American  surgeon,  yet  it 
must  be  admitted  that  their  offices  are  not  as  a  rule  the  most  suitable 
spot  for  the  preparation  of  dressings.  Contact  with  the  clothing 
and  person  of  patients  carrying  contagion  of  every  name  and  kind, 
together  with  a  thousand  and  one  avenues  through  which  the 
streams  of  infection  may  pour  into  their  rooms,  is  evidence  of  the 
unfitness  of  the  surroundings  of  the  physician  for  the  preparation 
of  surgically  clean  dressings. 
Likewise  in  hospitals,  many  of  which  are  attached  to  medical 
