AsSpfembe?fia89™"}     American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  477 
sively,  beginning  with  the  college  year  1900.  This,  in  the  Chairman's  mind, 
being  the  only  practical  way  of  bringing  the  metric  system  into  general  use  in 
medicine  and  pharmacy. 
The  Committee  on  Membership,  through  Mr.  George  W.  Kennedy,  its  Secre- 
tary, reported  that  the  Association  has  now  1,306  active  or  contributing  mem- 
bers, 98  life  members  and  11  honorary  members,  making  a  total  membership 
of  1,415. 
The  report  of  S.  A.  D.  Sheppard,  the  Treasurer,  showed  that  the  receipts 
during  the  year  amounted  to  19,535.65,  and  the  disbursements  aggregated 
$6,337.64,  leaving  a  balance  of  $3,198.01  on  hand. 
The  Committee  on  Time  and  Place  of  Next  Meeting  proposed  that  the  next 
meeting  take  place  in  Put-in-Bay,  Ohio,  on  September  4,  1899. 
The  report  of  the  Special  Committee  on  National  Legislation,  of  which  F.  K.  Stewart  is 
chairman,  had  particularly  to  do  with  the  subject  of  patents,  trade-marks,  etc.  It  stated  that 
during  the  past  year  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  has  been  especially  honored 
by  the  National  Association  of  Manufacturers.  The  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Patents  of 
said  Association  invited  the  chairman  of  your  Committee  on  National  Legislation  to  take  part 
in  the  deliberation  of  said  Committee  on  Patents.  One  of  the  most  active  and  prominent 
members  of  that  committee  is  also  secretary  of  the  National  Association  of  Inventors  and 
Manufacturers,  and  both  associations  are  acting  in  strong  accord  along  similar  lines.  Three 
important  and  influential  associations  have  thus  been  brought  into  touch  with  a  common  pur- 
pose in  view,  viz.,  the  proper  interpretation  and  partial  revision  of  the  United  States  patent 
and  trade-mark  laws.  Your  committee  now  reports  that  by  the  combined  efforts  of  the  three 
associations  referred  to,  aided  also  by  other  influence,  the  desired  object  is  in  the  way  of 
being  accomplished,  for  the  President  of  the  United  States  has  recently  appointed  a  commis- 
sion to  revise  the  United  States  patent  and  trade-mark  laws.  This  commission  consists  of 
Francis  Forbes,  of  New  York ;  Arthur  P.  Greeley,  of  New  Hampshire  (Assistant  Commis- 
sioner of  Patents),  and  Peter  Grosscup,  of  Illinois. 
The  importance  of  clearly  defining  the  problem  now  before  the  Association  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  commission  above  referred  to  is  very  evident.  It  is  time  to  drop  vague  terms 
and  loose  definitions  and  call  things  by  their  right  names.  The  terms  "  patent  medicine," 
''proprietary  medicine,''  "secret  nostrum,"  "trade-mark  pharmaceutical,"  etc.,  will  no 
longer  suffice.  We  must  define  clearly  our  premises  before  we  can  satisfactorily  enter  into 
arguments  with  our  opponents. 
The  common  understanding  of  the  term  patent"  medicine  is  "secret"  medicine.  The 
term  is  a  misnomer  when  thus  applied,  for  a  thing  patented  is  a  thing  divulged. 
The  common  understanding  of  the  term  "proprietary"  medicine  is  a  medicine  whose 
commonly  accepted  name  is  registered  as  a  trade-mark.  But,  registering  such  name  as  a 
trade-mark  does  not  make  it  a  trade-mark,  for  a  title  which  the  public  use  to  describe  the 
article  cannot  at  the  same  time  perform  the  function  of  a  brand-mark,  to  distinguish  one 
make  of  the  article  from  another  make  of  the  same  article. 
A  "  secret"  medicine  is  thus  defined  by  the  official  Medical  Board  of  Saxony:  "Secret 
remedies  are  all  those  agents  sold  for  the  prevention  and  cure  of  diseases  of  men  and  animals 
of  which  the  ingredients,  percentage,  composition  and  method  of  preparation  are  not  made 
public  when  first  announced  for  sale.  Such  information  must  be  complete  and  exact,  in 
readilj- comprehensible  language,  and  made  known  to  all  desirous  of  such  information." 
Taking  the  above  facts  into  consideration,  it  is  evident  that  a  patented  medicine  is  neither 
a  "patent  "  medicine  nor  a  "  proprietary  "  medicine,  nor  a  "  secret  "  medicine.  The  object  of 
the  patent  law  is  to  promote  progress  in  science  and  the  useful  arts.  Can  it  be  applied  to 
medical  science  and  the  associated  arts  of  pharmacy,  pharmaceutical  chemistry,  and  therapy, 
in  a  manner  to  realize  this  object?  Owing  to  the  impossibility  of  ascertaining  the  true  value 
of  a  new  introduction  to  the  Materia  Medica  as  a  therapeutic  agent,  except  by  years  of  patient 
investigation  by  competent  observers,  working  under  different  circumstances,  with  opportu- 
nities for  freely  criticising  each  other's  work,  untrammeled  by  commercial  consideration,  the 
granting  of  patents  for  inventions  in  the  therapeutic  art  does  not  seem  practical. 
The  trade-mark  law  should  so  read  as  to  make  it  necessary  for  every  article  of  commerce, 
when  first  introduced,  to  have  a  name  given  it  for  public  use  as  a  part  of  the  common  lan- 
guage.   It  should  also  require  that  the  common  descriptive  name  of  each  article  advertised 
