A™ctobUer,  i9i3?n"}    British  Pharmaceutical  Conference  479 
Revision  and  publication  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia,  he 
stated,  was  a  subject  of  great  importance  to  pharmacy  at  the  present 
time,  and  the  principal  part  of  his  address  was  devoted  to  a  de- 
tailed and  comprehensive  resume  of  pharmacopoeial  revision  for 
the  past  century.  While  the  pharmacists  of  the  United  States  have, 
for  many  revisions  of  their  Pharmacopoeia,  practically  played  a 
predominant  part  in  this  sort  of  work  with  physicians  taking  but 
a  slight  interest,  conditions  in  Great  Britain  have  always  been  the 
opposite.  There,  the  pharmacists  have  practically  no  official  stand- 
ing and  receive  no  recognition  for  any  work  done  in  connection 
with  pharmacopoeial  revision.  That  this  state  of  affairs  is  in- 
consistent and  should  no  longer  continue  is  the  plea  made  by  the 
president  of  the  Conference  and  he  argues  that  as  the  pharmacists 
now  receive  State  recognition  as  dispensers  of  medicine  the  time  is 
ripe  for  the  British  pharmacists  to  strive  for  a  readjustment  of 
functions,  both  from  a  medical  and  pharmaceutical  standpoint,  and 
he  urges."  that  this  should  be  done  with  amity  on  both  sides." 
He  then  goes  on  to  show  by  way  of  contrast  how  pharmacopoeial 
revision  is  accomplished  in  the  other  principal  countries  of  the 
earth,  stating  that  the  only  country  besides  his  own  that  has  a 
Revision  Commission  from  which  practising  pharmacists  are  ex- 
cluded is  Italy. 
He  states  that  the  right  of  the  General  Medical  Council  to 
publish  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  can  only  be  abrogated  by  act 
of  Parliament  and  that  now  is  the  opportune  time  for  the  promo- 
tion of  a  bill  to  that  effect. 
The  President  presents  for  the  consideration  of  the  Conference 
the  text  of  a  bill  which  covers  the  important  problems  of  revision 
of  the  pharmacopoeia,  along  the  lines  of  an  Imperial  Pharmacopoeia, 
in  which  there  is  representation  of  medicine  and  pharmacy  in  the 
mother  country,  India,  and  the  colonies. 
The  following  papers  were  communicated  to  the  meeting: 
The  Standardization  .of  Opium  for  Pharmaceutical  Purposes. 
By  P.  Van  Der  Wielen. 
The  writer  of  this  paper  states  that  it  is  certain  that  the  action 
of  opium  is  not  caused  by  morphine  alone,  and  as  the  quantity 
of  the  other  alkaloids  vary  and  probably  in  the  same  proportion 
as  morphine,  it  follows  that  standardization  of  morphine  alone  does 
