^pimbefS.1')  Progress  in  Pharmacy.  437 
The  recent  number  of  the  Journal  de  Pharmacie  d'Anvers  contains 
an  interesting  account  of  the  banquet  which  took  place  on  June  10th, 
and  also  contains  biographical  sketches  and  portraits  of  the  deco- 
rated pharmacists. 
Abbreviations  for  Metric  Units. — The  French  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction,  M.  Briand,  has  by  a  recent  decision  arranged  that  all 
professors  and  teachers  throughout  France  are  in  future  to  employ 
distinctive  abbreviations  for  the  various  weights  and  measures. 
These  abbreviations  are  particularly  interesting  in  that,  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  three  higher  designations  of  the  measure  of 
length,  myriametre,  Mm.;  kilometre,  Km.;  and  hectometre,  Hra., 
all  of  the  abbreviations  are  lower-case  letters. 
Thus  we  have  g.  for  gramme  in  place  of  the  Gm.  of  the  U.S. P., 
and  kl.,  1.,  and  mil.,  for  kilolitre,  litre,  and  millilitre.  The  latter 
abbreviation  corresponds  to  what  is  ambiguously  abbreviated  Cc. 
in  the  U.S.P.,  and  has  the  added  advantage  that  it  allows  of  further 
subdivision  of  the  millilitre,  or,  as  we  choose  to  call  it,  the  cubic 
centimeter,  for  which  the  abbreviations,  d.  or  dmil.  and  c.  or  cmil., 
for  decimil  and  centimil  respectively,  have  been  proposed.  (Phar. 
Jour.,  July  28,  1906,  page  65.) 
The  British  Medical  Association  and  Secret  Remedies. — Even  the 
proverbially  slow-going  English  people  are  beginning  to  awaken  to 
a  realization  of  the  frauds  that  have  been  and  are  now  being  perpe- 
trated under  the  guise  of  proprietary  medicine.  The  medico-politi- 
cal committee  of  the  British  Medical  Association,  at  the  recent 
annual  representative  meeting,  presented  a  series  of  recommendations 
with  regard  to  the  sale  of  proprietary  remedies  that,  if  they  could 
be  enacted  into  a  law,  would  go  far  toward  reducing  the  sale  of 
these  preparations  in  England. 
It  was  proposed : 
(a)  That  medicines  which  are  supplied  otherwise  than  upon 
medical,  dental  or  veterinarian  prescriptions  no  condition  of  sale 
short  of  the  publicity  on  each  packet  of  medicine  of  the  name  and 
the  quantity  of  each  of  its  constituents  be  permitted. 
(b)  That  the  label  should  be  made  a  warranty,  and  that  false  de- 
scriptions, whether  on  the  label  or  in  advertisement,  should  be  made 
an  offense. 
(c)  That  the  provisions  of  the  foods  and  drugs  acts  should  be 
applied  to  proprietary  medicines.    {Phar.  Jour.,  1906,  page  46.) 
