AmiuJ£iUst  Figir9m'  )     Revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia.  519 
have  to  a  marked  degree  disappeared.  The  press,  the  telegraph,  the 
telephone  and  the  phonograph  have  commingled  and  intermingled 
speech. 
Out  of  this  we  find  at  most  two  languages  which  seem  to  have 
attained  the  balance  of  power,  viz. :  English  and  French.  The 
smaller  languages  survive  as  speech,  but  not  as  the  language  of  lit- 
erature or  science. 
The  war  has  put  an  end  to  the  spread  of  the  German  language, 
or  of  German  influence  in  science.  Before  the  war  the  Germans 
themselves  realized  the  inadequacy  of  their  language  as  a  world 
tongue.  To  prevent  the  growing  predominance  of  English  and 
French,  the  Germans  invented  and  fostered  artificial  tongues,  such 
as  Esperanto. 
With  the  coming  of  peace,  Germany  takes  rank  as  the  Ishmael 
among  nations.  Against  the  spread  of  the  German  tongue,  German 
"kulture"  and  German  science,  are  hostile  frontiers.  The  nations 
of  the  earth  have  set  their  hearts,  their  bodies  and  their  guns  against 
any  Germanic  advance. 
It  foreshadows  much  that  at  the  Peace  Conferences  the  scores 
of  nations  represented  conducted  their  sessions  and  wrote  their 
documents  in  the  English  and  French  tongues.  The  French  speech 
is  smooth,  light,  flowing  and  expressive.  A  book  in  any  language  is 
easily  translatable  into  French.  The  English  and  French  languages 
have  technical  and  scientific  phrases  which  have  meanings  in  com- 
mon. Through  language  alone  French  science  must  hold  a  high 
place  in  the  world's  literature. 
English  is  the  language  of  commerce.  It  is  predicted  that  it  will 
be  the  world  language  of  the  future,  with  French  as  a  second  choice. 
Pharmaceutical  literature  in  English  has  already  encompassed  the 
earth. 
The  British  Pharmacopoeia  of  1914  was  an  imperial  pharma- 
copoeia, legalized  and  accepted  throughout  the  whole  British  Empire. 
The  preeminence  of  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  is  ac- 
knowledged. American  dispensatories,  and  such  works  as  Reming- 
ton's Pharmacy,  have  no  counterpart  in  any  language.  It  was  a 
German,  not  an  American,  who  proclaimed  American  Pharmacy  as 
"  the  best  in  the  world." 
Through  combined  British  and  American  influence  the  pharmacy 
of  the  world,  so  far  as  literature  and  practice  are  concerned,  will, 
for  generations  to  come,  be  under  the  domination  of  the  English 
language. 
