6  Retail  Pharmacist  and  Pure  Drugs.    jA  jaI^:  \^m- 
are  cured  or  dried  and  subsequently  handled,  it  becomes  exceed- 
ingly difficult  for  the  pharmacist  to  furnish  a  uniform  article  from 
time  to  time,  particularly  in  cases  in  which  there  are  no  standards  for 
the  active  remedial  constituents.  The  difficulties  of  the  pharmacist, 
dealing  as  he  does  with  galenicals  containing  the  constituents  of 
living  plants,  are  in  a  measure  comparable  to  the  difficulties  of  the 
physician  who  finds  his  patient  a  living  organism  with  individual 
variations  that  preclude  his  determining  with  absolute  precision  the 
amount  or  character  of  response  with  any  given  quantity  of  drug. 
But  as  the  medical  profession  is  directing  its  attention  as  never  be- 
fore to  a  scientific  study  of  the  action  of  drugs,  so  the  members  of 
the  pharmaceutic  profession  are  advancing  and  attempting  to  pro- 
vide drugs  and  preparations  with  a  definite  quantity  of  active 
principle. 
FACTORS  IN   THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  DRUGS. 
To  give  assurance  of  the  progress  that  is  being  made  I  may 
mention  some  of  the  factors  which  are  contributing  to  an  improve- 
ment in  the  quality  of  drugs. 
Legislation. — One  of  the  most  important  of  these  is  the  enact- 
ment and  enforcement  of  national  and  state  laws  relating  to  drugs 
and  medicines.  This  beneficial  influence  has  been  going  on  ever 
since  Congress,  in  1848,  passed  the  law  requiring  all  imported  drugs 
and  medicinal  preparations  to  be  inspected  before  passing  the  cus- 
tom-house. In  the  address  of  Professor  Procter  2  already  referred 
to  he  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  at  that  time  at  the  port  of 
New  York  alone  something  like  100,000  pounds  of  spurious,  adul- 
terated and  deteriorated  drugs  were  annually  rejected  and  screened 
out  of  the  market  which  but  for  this  law  would  have  been  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  United  States.  I  have  not  seen  the  fig- 
ures showing  the  amount  of  spurious  and  adulterated  drugs,  which 
were  refused  admission  into  the  United  States  since  the  passage  of 
the  Food  and  Drugs  Act  of  1906,  but  I  am  sure  that  it  was  quite 
large,  as  the  standards  adopted  were  not  only  those  of  the  U.  S. 
Pharmacopoeia  and  the  Association  of  Offi^ial  Agricultural  Chem- 
ists, but  those  representing  the  most  recent  researches  in  phar- 
maceutic chemistry  and  pharmacognosy.  To  what  an  extent  we 
have  progressed  may  be  seen  from  the  picture  that  Professor 
Procter  has  given  us  of  the  conditions  that  prevailed  fifty  years  ago. 
