546 
Pharmaceutical  Meeting . 
/  Am.  Jour,  Pharm, 
I  November,  1905. 
PHARMACEUTICAL  MEETING. 
The  first  of  the  series  of  pharmaceutical  meetings  of  the  Phila- 
delphia College  of  Pharmacy  for  1905- 1906  was  held  on  Tuesday 
afternoon,  October  17th,  with  Prof.  Samuel  P.  Sadtler  in  the  chair. 
The  meeting  was  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  new  Pharma- 
copoeia, and  in  this  connection  two  papers  were  presented,  one  by 
M.  I.  Wilbert,  on  (<  Doses  in  the  U.S.P.,"  and  one  by  Allen  Shryock, 
on  "  Our  New  Pharmacopoeia  and  the  Metric  System  of  Weights 
and  Measures,"  which  latter  was  read  in  the  absence  of  the  author 
by  Charles  H.  La  Wall. 
In  commenting  on  the  first  paper  Dr.  Lowe  said  that  the  com- 
parison which  Mr.  Wilbert  made  of  the  doses  in  the  first  revision 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia  and  those  in  the  eighth  decennial  revision 
showed  that  there  is  a  tendency  to  reduce  the  size  of  doses.  The 
speaker  then  called  attention  to  some  of  the  doses  in  the  new  Phar- 
macopoeia which  he  considered  to  be  rather  peculiar.  As  examples 
he  mentioned  the  dose  of  honey  which  is  given  as  I  fl.  dr.,  while 
the  dose  of  tamarinds,  a  more  active  medicine,  is  4  dr. ;  another 
example  was  codeine,  the  dose  for  the  alkaloid  and  its  salts  being 
the  same.  He  was  glad  that  average  doses  were  given,  as  there 
would  have  been  no  advantage  in  giving  minimum  doses  only,  and 
if  maximum  doses  had  been  given  this  would  have  tended  to  hamper 
the  physician. 
Otto  Kraus  related  an  instance  showing  that  some  physicians 
have  already  begun  to  write  their  prescriptions  in  accordance  with 
the  new  Pharmacopoeia,  but  said  that  the  majority  of  them  have 
not  yet  taken  cognizance  of  the  important  changes  which  have  been 
made. 
Dr.  C.  A.  Weidemann  did  not  agree  with  the  latter  statement,  and 
said  that  physicians  are  aware  of  this  feature  of  the  work. 
Professor  Sadtler  said  that  owing  to  the  large  number  of  circulars 
which  had  been  distributed  giving  notice  of  the  changes  in  strength 
of  pharmacopoeial  preparations,  it  hardly  seemed  possible  for  any 
physician  to  be  ignorant  of  them.  He  then  alluded  to  the  personnel 
of  the  Sub-committee  on  Doses,  and  said  it  was  composed  of  both 
physicians  and  pharmacists,  but  that  the  subject  was  left  mostly  to 
the  physicians,  who,  he  said,  were  eminent  in  their  calling,  and  no 
doubt  had  some  good  reasons  for  the  selection  of  the  doses  as  given 
