Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Nov.,  1921. 
Determination  of  Tannin. 
769 
Our  teaching  hospitals  at  present  are,  perhaps,  more  diagnostic 
institutes  than  institutes  of  therapy.  It  might,  possibly,  be  wise  to 
divide  our  medical  clinics  ino  two  parts,  patients  entering  one  division 
for  general  diagnostic  study  and  emergency  measures,  to  be  trans- 
ferred afterward  to  the  other  division  for  full  treatment,  the  effects 
of  which  could  be  carefully  observed  by  the  students. 
The  internist  with  such  a  training  in  the  medical  school  as  I 
have  outlined  will  be  prepared  to  institute  a  rational  therapy  wher- 
ever this  is  possible.  He  will  know  how  to  make  a  judicious  use  of 
empiric  therapy  when  a  rational  foundation  is  lacking.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  pathology  and  therapy  have  of  late  years  made  such  rapid 
strides  that  the  physician  can,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  give  rea- 
sons for  the  therapeutic  faith  that  is  in  him.  For  this  we- have  to 
thank  both  the  research  activity  of  the  scientific  laboratories  and  the 
keen  and  critical  observations  of  our  better  clinics. 
The  introduction  of  new  therapeutic  methods  and  new  drugs 
can  scarcely  be  expected  from  now  on  to  be  arrived  at  by  accident,  or 
through  pure  empiricism.  Every  new  therapeutic  agent  should,  as 
Magnus  1  has  emphasized,  be  thoroughly  tested  in  the  laboratories  as 
regards  its  activity  and  its  dangers  and,  later,  in  the  organized  clinics, 
before  it  is  introduced  into  general  medical  practice.  But  results  in 
clinical  experience  must  ever  remain  the  final  and  crucial  test  of 
every  form  of  therapy. 
THE  DETERMINATION  OF  TANNIN*  1 2 
By  John  Arthur  Wilson  and  Erwin  J.  Kern. 
Laboratories  of  A.  F.  Gallun  &  Sons  Co.,  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin. 
A  rather  widespread  controversy  has  arisen  over  a  new  method 
of  tannin  analysis  described  by  the  authors  in  two  previous  papers,3 
in  which  it  was  shown  that  the  methods  adopted  as  official  both  here 
1  Magnus,  R. :  Allgemeine  Pharmakotherapie ,  in  Krause  and  Garre  :  Lehr- 
buch  der  Therapie  der  inner  en  Krankheiten,  Jena  1 :  71-143,  191 1. 
^Reprinted  from  the  Journ.  of  Ind.  and  Eng.  Chem.,  September,  1921, 
1  Received  July  26,  1921. 
2  To  be  presented  before  the  Leather  Chemistry  Section  at  the  Sixty- 
second  Meeting  of  the  American  Chemical  Society,  New  York  City,  September 
6  to  10,  1921. 
3  Journ.  Ind.  and  Eng.  Chem.,  12  (1920),  465,  1149. 
