438 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  September,  1906. 
The  Plague  of  Fancy  Names. — Gnomon  {Phar.  Jour.,  May  12, 
1906,  page  550),  in  commenting  on  the  renaming  of  well-known 
and  even  widely  used  substances,  calls  attention  to  the  overwhelming 
flood  of  fancy  names  with  which  medicine  and  pharmacy  are  being 
threatened  at  the  present  time. 
The  abuse  growing  out  of  the  multiplicity  of  trade-mark  names 
for  the  same  article  are  even  now  burdensome  and  annoying  and 
would  certainly  appear  to  be  deserving  of  the  thought  and  the  atten- 
tion of  pharmaceutical  associations,  with  a  view  of  offering  some 
relief  or  of  making  at  least  some  effort  to  induce  manufacturers  to 
discontinue  the  practice. 
Exclusion  of  Secret  Remedies  from  North  Dakota. — The  officials 
of  North  Dakota  appear  to  be  willing  to  enforce  the  recently  enacted 
legislation  to  control  the  sale  of  secret  remedies  in  that  State. 
Bulletin  69  of  the  North  Dakota  Agricultural  Experiment  Sta- 
tion, issue  of  June,  1906,  calls  attention  to  a  number  of  articles  that 
have  so  far  been  examined  by  the  officials.  The  further  sale  of  these 
preparations  will  not  be  permitted  in  the  State  until  all  of  the 
several  requirements  of  the  law  have  been  fully  complied  with. 
(Jour.  Am.  Med.  Assoc.,  July  28,  1906.) 
New  Elements. — Sir  William  Crookes,  in  a  note  published  in  the 
Chemical  News,  describes  spectroscopic  observations  of  the  phos- 
phorescent glow  emitted  by  some  of  the  rare  earths,  exposed  to 
cathode  rays  in  vacuo,  which  indicate  the  existence  of  two  new 
elements.    These  he  has  provisionally  named  ionium  and  incognitum. 
Oxidation  Compounds  of  Strychnine. — Mattison  has  produced  a 
series  of  oxidation  compounds  of  strychnine  by  means  of  hydrogen 
dioxide.  Some  of  these  compounds  he  found  to  be  acid  and  some 
basic  in  their  nature.  One  of  the  more  interesting  which  he  desig. 
nates  as  strychnine  oxide,  occurs  as  large  colorless  prisms  having 
the  formula  C21H22N203  -f-  SH20.  It  is  found  to  have  practically  as 
poisonous  properties  as  strychnine.  (Chem.  and  Drug.,  1 906,  page 
810.) 
Corosuccin. — This  is  said  to  be  an  antiseptic  and  is  composed  of  a 
concentrated  solution  of  succinic  acid  with  traces  of  mercuric 
chloride.  It  is  asserted  that  succinic  acid  materially  enhances  the 
antiseptic  action  of  mercuric  chloride;  so  much  so  that  a  i-20,ooo 
solution  of  mercuric  chloride  containing  2.5  percent,  of  succinic  acid 
is  said  to  have  an  antiseptic  value  corresponding  to  that  of  a  2  per 
cent,  solution  of  mercuric  chloride.    (Apothek.  Zeit.,  1906,  page  479.) 
