A^ugusrt,i905.rtu'}  Eighth  Decennial  Revision  of  Pharmacopoeia.  361 
thirteen  of  the  official  essential  oils.  Whether  or  not  all  of  these 
processes  will  fully  meet  with  the  qualifications  provided  in  the  com- 
mittee's instructions  time  alone  can  demonstrate,  as  it  will  require  a 
considerable  number  of  experiments  by  widely  differing  operators  to 
demonstrate  whether  or  not  the  adopted  processes  "  lead  to  fairly 
uniform  results  in  different  hands." 
Purity  and  Strength  of  Phatmacopceial  Articles. — To  fully  meet  the 
recommendations  of  the  National  Convention,  on  the  purity  and 
strength  of  pharmacopceial  articles,  the  Committee  on  Revision  has 
adopted  what  it  is  pleased  to  designate  as  the  "  Purity  Rubric." 
While  considerable  publicity  has  been  given  the  fact  that  the  adop- 
tion of  such  a  standard,  or  rather  series  of  standards,  was  contem- 
plated, little  or  nothing  has  been  known  as  to  the  proposed 
limitations  of  the  permissible  impurities,  and  the  official  descriptions 
of  the  included  chemicals  will,  no  doubt,  be  eagerly  scanned  by 
pharmacists  and  others  to  learn  what,  and  how  much,  foreign  mate- 
rial may  officially  be  found  in,  or  added  to,  any  given  substance. 
In  common  with  the  assay  processes  mentioned  above,  time  alone 
can  demonstrate  the  wisdom,  or  the  desirability,  of  making  much  of 
this  particular  innovation  in  the  way  it  has  been  done.  It  is  quite 
probable,  however,  that  it  would  have  been  more  satisfactory  if  the 
Committee  on  Revision  had  adopted  generally  attainable  standards 
for  purity  without  laying  undue  stress  on  the  permissible  impurities, 
or,  as  stated  in  the  preface  to  the  Pharmacopoeia  "  more  accurately 
defining  the  limit  of  purity  permissible  in  official  chemical  sub- 
stances." 
Regarding  the  second  portion  of  this  item  of  the  instructions,  the 
committee  has  only  partially  acceded  to  that  portion  which  reads  : 
"  It  is  recommended  that  the  committee  keep  in  view  the  desira- 
bility of  at  least  a  gradual  approach,  upon  mutual  concessions, 
towards  uniformity  with  similar  preparations  of  other  pharmaco- 
poeias, particularly  in  the  case  of  potent  remedies  which  are  in 
general  use  among  civilized  nations." 
By  comparing  the  formulas  for  preparations  of  potent  drugs  with 
the  provisions  of  the  protocol  signed  by  the  accredited  representa- 
tives of  civilized  nations,  at  Brussels,  in  1902  (A.  J.  P.,  1903,  page 
1),  it  will  be  found  that  our  U.S.P.  preparations  still  differ  in  many 
particulars  from  the  proposed  International  Standard. 
The  committee,  it  is  true,  has  made  a  number  of  important  con- 
