Am\i1iuUs?'Sl?"m'}         Pharmacy  of  Useful  Drugs.  373 
Taking  the  chemistry  of  the.  British  Pharmacopoeia  as  a  whole, 
while  it  shows  some  progress  since  the  previous  edition  of  1898,  the 
advance  has  not  been  as  marked  as  will  be  shown  in  the  U.  S.  P.  IX 
over  the  U.  S.  P.  VIII. 
THE  PHARMACY  OF  USEFUL  DRUGS.1 
By  M.  I.  Wilbert,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Soon  after  the  organization  of  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and 
Chemistry  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  in  the  early  spring 
of  1905,  it  became  evident  that  much  of  the  then  existing  misuse 
of  proprietary  remedies  was  due  to  the  fact  that  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  medical  practitioners  had  received  but  inadequate  in- 
struction regarding  the  possible  uses  and  limitations  of  official  and 
other  widely-used  medicines.  It  was  also  recognized  that,  with  the 
limited  amount  of  time  that  could  be  devoted  to  materia  medica 
subjects  in  the  already  overcrowded  curriculum  of  medical  schools, 
it  would  be  practically  impossible  to  present  even  a  superficial  view 
of  the  four  or  five  thousand  drugs  and  preparations  in  everyday  use. 
As  the  fundamental  object  of  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and 
Chemistry  is  to  develop  and  to  foster  the  intelligent,  scientific  use  of 
medicinal  preparations  in  the  treatment  of  disease,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  consider  the  practicability  of  bringing  about  a  change  in  the 
then  existing  condition.  At  the  meeting  of  the  American  Medical 
Association  in  Boston,  in  1907,  the  problems  involved  were  discussed, 
and,  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Section  on  Pharmacology  and 
Therapeutics,  a  sub-committee  of  the  Council  was  appointed  to  con- 
sider ways  and  means  to  bring  about  more  efficient  instruction  in 
materia  medica  subjects.  This  sub-committee,  after  due  considera- 
tion, came  to  the  conclusion  that  teachers  in  materia  medica  subjects 
in  medical  schools  felt  that  it  was  necessary  to  impart  a  smattering  of 
information  in  regard  to  a  large  number  of  drugs  and  their  prepara- 
tions because  members  of  state  medical  examining  and  licensing 
boards  were  likely  to  ask  questions  regarding  them.  Members  of 
state  medical  examining  and  licensing  boards,  on  the  other  hand, 
thought  it  desirable  to  ask  questions  regarding  the  many  thousands  of 
1  Presented  at  the  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Associa- 
tion, Forest  Park,  Pa.,  June  22-24,  1915. 
