AQASust,PiKm'}  Eighth  Decennial  Revision  of  Pharmacopeia.  365 
larly  stable,  some  official  limitation  of  the  permissible  decomposition 
would  appear  to  be  particularly  desirable.  Sodii  carbonas  is  another 
substance  for  which  there  would  appear  to  be  little  or  no  valid 
reasons  for  its  dismissal;  it  is  true  the  committee  has  offered  us,  as 
a  substitute,  sodii  carbonas  monohydras,  but  as  this  substitute  ap- 
pears to  be  quite  unknown  in  the  ordinary  channels  of  trade,  not  even 
appearing  in  the  price  lists  of  manufacturing  chemists,  it  would  seem 
as  though  the  committee  might  have  contented  itself  by  replacing 
sodii  carbonas  exsiccatus  by  the  new  title  and  retaining  the  well- 
known,  though  admittedly  variable,  sodii  carbonas  until  such  times 
as  sodii  carbonas  monohydras  had  demonstrated  its  supposedly 
superior  qualities. 
At  least  one  of  the  dismissals  has  considerable  sentimental  interest. 
For  more  than  sixty  years  absinthium  has  practically  served  as 
the  first  stepping  stone  of  the  average  apprentice  into  the  interest- 
ing and  fertile  fields  of  pharmaceutical  learning.  In  this  connection 
it  would  be  interesting,  indeed,  to  know  what  a  host  of  pleasant  and 
in  some  cases,  perhaps,  unpleasant  memories  will  be  awakened  by 
the  dismissal  of  this  one  article.  To  many  of  the  older  men  par- 
ticularly it  will  appear  as  though  another  of  the  threads  that  binds 
the  present  with  the  past  has  been  broken,  and  the  question  sug- 
gests itself,  who  is  there  that  is  willing  and  able  to  record  the  his- 
tory, the  romance  and  the  varied  memories  that  necessarily  cluster 
about  this  singularly  interesting  though  admittedly  useless  drug? 
General  Formula?. — Paragraph  6  of  the  general  principles  to  be  fol- 
lowed in  revising  the  Pharmacopoeia,  has  already  been  referred  to 
in  another  portion  of  this  review.  Unfortunately,  perhaps,  for  the 
present-day  pharmacist  the  instructions  that  were  given  the  com- 
mittee were  not  sufficiently  specific,  and  the  members  of  the  com- 
mittee probably  thought  it  beyond  their  province  to  include  general 
formulae  for  preparations  not  included  directly  in  the  Pharmacopoeia. 
Some  of  the  formulae  for  galenical  preparations  that  are  included 
in  this  new  Pharmacopoeia  would  appear  to  indicate  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Committee  on  Revision  have  lost  faith  in  the  ability, 
cunning  and  training  of  the  average  American  pharmacist. 
For  more  than  half  a  century  it  has  been  the  belief  of  the  Ameri- 
can pharmacist  that  he  could,  and  actually  did,  make  a  very  large 
number  of  extractive  preparations  by  percolation  that,  in  other 
countries,  were  usually  made  by  maceration.    The  present  revision 
