^ovemlef!1^'}      Needs  of  the  Business  Pharmacist.  535 
by  one  what  I  may  call  tHe  legitimate  scientific  side  lines  of  phar- 
macy have  passed  into  other  hands  through  lack  of  proper  informa- 
tion from  sources  that  should  guide  the  business  pharmacist. 
But  by  far  the  most  important  work  confronting  us  in  the  imme- 
diate future  is  the  question  of  food  and  drug  adulteration.  The 
vicious  attacks  of  certain  proprietary  medicine  interests  through  the 
daily  press,  and  the  outcry  on  the  part  of  ill-informed  pure  food  and 
drug  fanatics  are  to  some  extent  undermining  public  confidence  in 
the  pharmacist.  One  of  the  fundamental  objects  for  which  this 
association  was  founded  was  to  secure  purity  in  drugs  and  chemicals, 
to  suppress  empiricism  and  to  confine  the  sale  of  medicines  to  regu- 
larly qualified  apothecaries.  Of  late  years  little  has  been  done  in 
this  direction  until  the  appointment  at  the  St.  Louis  meeting  of  the 
Special  Committee  on  Drug  Adulterations.  This  committee  has 
been  continued  from  year  to  year  by  the  chairman  of  this  section, 
but  without  regular  authorization.  The  results  which  have  been 
already  reported  would  seem  to  warrant  its  continuance  as  a  stand- 
ing committee  of  this  section.  If  the  work  be  continued  upon  the 
lines  inaugurated  by  Professor  Patch  it  can  be  made  one  of  the  most 
powerful  influences  for  the  good  of  the  association,  the  benefit  of  the 
retail  pharmacist  and  the  general  public.  It  is  the  commencement 
of  the  first  systematic  attempt  to  determine  to  what  extent  adultera- 
tion of  drugs  and  chemicals  is  practised,  and  it  is  gratifying  to  note 
that  some  of  the  State  associations  are  doing  similar  work. 
The  widespread  agitation  regarding  adulterated  drugs  is  to  some 
extent  manufactured  either  for  personal  or  political  ends.  That 
adulteration  exists  we  know,  but  to  what  extent  we  do  not  know, 
nor  do  those  who  are  engaged  in  fostering  the  agitation ;  but  it  is  a 
serious  menace  to  pharmacy  in  that  it  represents  an  organized 
attempt  to  take  away  from  pharmacists  the  control  of  pharmaceutical 
products.  Such  an  attempt  should  be  resisted  by  every  means  in 
our  power. 
DANGER  FROM  OFFICIAL  CHEMISTS. 
In  an  effort  to  find  out  what  knowledge  is  possessed  by  those  State 
officials  and  chemists  who  aid  in  fomenting  the  question,  a  letter 
was  addressed  to  the  principal  officials  of  those  States  which  have 
commissions  devoted  to  food  and  drug  examination  asking  whether 
any  systematic  effort  had  been  made  to  ascertain  to  what  extent 
