306 
Editorial. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1901. 
following  terms  :  We  have  asked  you  to  approve  of  the  Formulary,  provided 
you  thought  it  worth}-.  That  was  the  proposition,  or,  perhaps,  merely  a  sug- 
gestion on  the  part  of  the  committee.  Then  the  other  proposition  was  put  in 
the  form  of  an  invitation  from  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  societies,  asking 
the  Association  to  join  in  the  copyright.  We  did  not  insist  that  you  should 
copyiight  it  ;  we  offered  it  to  you  and  wanted  to  help  you  in  the  matter  of 
getting  the  copyright,  as  we  are  incorporated.  Or  if  you  did  not  want  it  copy- 
righted, and  are  rich  enough  to  put  your  hand  into  your  pocket  and  pay  for 
its  publication  without  insuring  to  yourselves  the  exclusive  sale  of  it,  you 
could  go  ahead  and  do  it.  The  next  proposition  was  that  we  ask  you—  actually 
ask  you — to  take  all  the  work  that  had  been  done  in  the  preparation  of  the 
third  edition,  which  we  interrupted  in  order  to  make  you  this  offer.  We  did 
not  ask  you  to  appoint  us  a  committee.  As  a  committee  you  can  appoint  any- 
body else.  We  are  very  willing  to  turn  over  all  our  papers  to  this  committee. 
We  knew  that  some  money  was  required  to  carry  on  the  experiments,  and  we 
suggested  that  you  place  some  funds  at  the  disposal  of  the  committee.  You 
need  not  do  this  if  the  committee  are  all  rich  men  and  are  willing  to  pay  the 
expense  themselves.  But  you  could  not  expect  everybody  to  do  that  and 
serve  upon  the  committee.  If  this  committee  is  going  to  correspond  with  the 
State  pharmaceutical  associations  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  to  find  out 
what  formulas  each  one  desires  to  have  introduced,  with  a  view  of  making 
them  uniform,  there  will  be  some  expense.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  all  the 
work  would  cost  something,  we  suggested  that  you  set  aside  for  the  use  of  the 
committee  $250. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  a  previous  committee  made  an  official 
request  of  our  General  Committee  to  let  them  have  the  New  York  and  Brook- 
lyn Formulary,  in  order  to  incorporate  it  in  their  report  to  this  Association, 
because  they  could  not  get  up  anything  better.  We  made  the  reply  that  we 
were  not  authorized  at  the  time  to  turn  over  the  book  ;  but  as  the  work  has 
now  advanced  so  far  in  our  hands,  we  concluded  to  give  it  to  the  Association 
in  order  to  make  it  national.  We  sent  a  representative  to  Philadelphia  to  see 
the  Council,  and  the  Council  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  the  offer  at  that  time 
so  far  as  they  understood  it  ;  but  they  decided  that  they  were  not  authorized 
to  accept  it,  or  to  act  in  the  premises,  and  the  advice  then  given  us  was  to 
come  to  the  Association.  In  response  to  that  invitation,  we  make  you  a  very 
liberal  offer  and  that  is  what  was  given  to  the  Association  yesterday.  Yester- 
day the  impression  on  my  mind  and  on  the  minds  of  my  colleagues  was  very 
strong  that  our  offer  was  supposed  to  be  not  quite  disinterested,  and  that  for 
this  reason  cold  water  was  thrown  upon  it.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  that  was  a 
misapprehension.  The  explanation  made  a  little  while  ago  is  satisfactory, 
and  the  offer  still  stands,  without  any  reserve  of  any  kind  ;  and  if  you  are 
ready  to  act  upon  it,  we  shall  be  perfectly  satisfied. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  National  Formulary,  and  in  its 
inception,  principles  and  subsequent  policies  Dr.  Rice  was  the 
master  hand.1    For  most  men  this  would  have  been  a  monumental 
1  See  Proc.  A.Ph.A.,  1884,  p.  506  ;  1S85,  pp.  558,  574  ;  18S6,  pp.  159,  177,  191  ; 
1887,  p.  496  ;  18S8,  first  issue  of  the  National  Formulary. 
