354     Eighth  Decennial  Revision  of  Pharmacopoeia.  {^i£g£ijg^ 
In  the  general  style  of  its  make-up  it  closely  resembles  the  Pharma- 
copoeias published  by  the  revision  committees  of  1880  and  1890. 
The  materia  medica  of  the  new  Pharmacopoeia  is  comprised  in  510 
pages  and  includes  a  total  of  957  titles,  33  less  than  are  found  in 
the  Pharmacopoeia  of  1890  and  40  less  than  were  included  in  the 
Pharmacopoeia  for  1880. 
The  general  trend  of  the  articles  in  the  several  revisions  is  well 
shown  in  the  appended  table,  giving  the  comparative  number  of  the 
drugs  and  preparations,  in  these  several  revisions,  compared  with 
the  list  of  articles  included  in  the  latest  edition  of  the  German 
Pharmacopoeia. 
TABLE  NO.  I. — GIVING  COMPARATIVE  NUMBER  AND  VARIETY  OF  ARTICLES 
INCLUDED  IN  THE  THREE  MOST  RECENT  EDITIONS  OF  THE  U.S. P.  AND  IN 
THE  GERMAN  PHARMACOPOEIA  FOR  I9OO. 
U.S. P.  U.S. P.  U.S  P.       Phar  Germ. 
188c.           •    1890.  1900.  1900. 
Vegetable  264  255  220  177 
Animal"                                       15  18  21  15 
Chemical   ..........    233  239  267  178 
Galenical  481  473  443  234 
General  formulas                           4  5  6  23 
Cross  references                      .     —  —  —  i 
Total  997  990  957  626 
From  a  comparison  of  these  figures  it  will  be  seen  that  while  the 
actual  as  well  as  the  comparative  number  of  the  ofncial  vegetable 
drugs  has  decreased,  the  drugs  of  animal  origin  have  slightly  in- 
creased. Articles  of  a  chemical  nature  have  increased  very  decidedly 
and  there  is  a  corresponding  falling  off  in  the  number  of  galenical 
preparations.  The  number  of  general  formulas  has  been  increased  but 
slowly  in  the  U.S. P.,  and  in  this  particular  our  National  Standard  is 
certainly  far  behind  the  German  Pharmacopoeia,  which,  as  may  be 
noted  above,  includes  no  less  than  23  general  formulas  or  descrip- 
tive articles  or  headings. 
This  lack  of  general  headings,  particularly  in  view  of  the  instruc- 
tions given  the  committee  in  paragraph  6  of  the  general  principles 
to  be  followed  in  revising  the  Pharmacopoeia,  is  greatly  to  be  de- 
plored and  constitutes  one  of  the  questions  that  should  be  very 
freely  discussed  and  commented  on  with  a  view  of  obviating  any 
similar  action  by  the  revision  committee  that  will  be  appointed  in 
1910  to  go  over  and  if  possible  improve  on  this  present  edition. 
