20  Educational  Work  of  A.M.  A.       {A  j^ry,  i9iT' 
aims  of  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and  Chemistry  of  the  American 
Medical  Association/'  published  in  the  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association  and  since  then  reprinted  in  the  form  of  a 
pamphlet  for  ready  reference. 
The  origin  of  the  Council  is  also  recorded  in  the  Proceedings 
of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  for  1905  (Vol.  53,  pp. 
67-69),  so  that  for  the  time  being  it  will  suffice  to  state  that  the 
Council  was  organized  in  February,  1905,  for  the  direct  purpose 
of  investigating  the  then  numerous  and  involved  problems  in  con- 
nection with  the  advertising  and  use  of  proprietary  remedies.  As 
originally  constituted  the  Council  consisted  of  three  Sub-Commit- 
tees— pharmacy,  chemistry,  and  pharmacology — with  the  late  C. 
S.  N.  Hallberg  as  Secretary  and  "  Mainspring." 
The  functions  of  the  Council  were  primarily  judicial  and  its 
first  work  was  to  assist  in  ridding  the  pages  of  the  Journal  of  the 
American  Medical  Association  of  the  advertisements  of  secret  and 
semi-secret  proprietary  remedies. 
To  appreciate  the  really  far-reaching  effects  of  this  work,  more 
particularly  the  courage  required  to  carry  it  on,  one  must  compare 
a  number  of  the  Journal  published  5  or  6  years  ago  with  a  corres- 
ponding number  of  to-day,  and  note  the  direct  money  loss  in  the 
way  of  "  gilt  edge  "  advertising  that  was  involved. 
At  that  time  wiseacres  on  all  sides  predicted  that  the  under- 
taking was  rank  folly,  that  the  Journal  of  the  A.  M.  A.  could  not 
exist  without  the  patronage  of  proprietary  medicine  manufacturers 
and  that  the  life  of  the  Council  would  necessarily  be  a  short  one. 
Fortunately  these  prophets  had  not  taken  into  consideration  the 
fact  that  the  average  American  and  more  particularly  the  average 
American  physician  is  willing  to,  and  does  occasionally,  do  some 
thinking  for  himself  and  usually  follows  his  thinking  up  with  a* 
practical  adaptation  of  the  course  that  appeals  to  him. 
While  the  members  of  the  Council,  individually  and  collectively, 
were  maligned  and  abused  in  some  quarters  for  being  "  hare- 
brained "  destructionists,  their  work  was  appreciated  and  praised 
by  the  better  element  in  American  medicine  and  in  a  surprisingly 
short  time  physicians  all  over  the  country  were  willing  to  have 
the  Council  adopt  much  more  stringent  rules  than  the  originators 
of  the  same  had  dared  to  hope  for. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Council  held  in  1908,  the  original  ten 
rules  were  amended  so  as  to  provide  for  a  more  or  less  compre- 
hensive investigation  of  the  therapeutic  claims  made  in  connection 
