320 
(2)  What  are  the  most  expedient  ways  and  means  of  elaborating  a  code  or 
formulary  of  official  medicines,  for  which  it  is  important  to  establish  a  uniform 
composition  ? 
(3)  What  are  the  best  and  most  practical  means  of  determining  the  amount 
of  active  principles,  especially  of  alkaloids  in  the  drugs  containing  them,  and 
in  the  galenical  preparation  of  these  drugs  ? 
Each  association  will  be  entitled  to  three  delegates,  national  associations  to 
three  delegates  for  every  100  of  its  members,  but  each  delegation  will  have 
only  one  vote. 
The  Congress  was  attended  by  about  fifty  delegates  from  France, 
three  from  Holland,  two  from  the  United  States  (Wm.  Procter,  jtr., 
of  Philadelphia,  and  John  Faber,  then  residing  at  Nuremberg),  three 
from  Germany,  four  from  Austria-Hungary,  three  from  Russia,  two 
from  Spain,  two  from  Switzerland,  one  from  Italy,  one  from  Sweden 
and  one  from  Egypt.  Dr.  Rieckher,  of  Germany,  was  elected  Presi- 
dent, with  five  honorary  vice-presidents. 
The  deliberations  seem  to  have  been  not  strictly  in  the  line  of  the 
proposed  questions.  The  main  discussions  and  resolutions  related 
to  the  following  subjects : 
How  can  the  status  and  prosperity  of  the  practice  of  pharmacy 
be  best  advanced  ? — By  restriction  of  the  relative  number  of  phar 
macies  and  by  a  proper  control  and  limitation  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  inhabitants  and  the  increase  of  population.  The  Amer- 
ican delegates  were  the  only  ones  who  voted  in  the  negative. 
It  was  recognized  to  be  advisable  to  institute  pharmaceutical 
advisory  boards  for  assisting  the  Government  in  the  proper  regula- 
tion and  control  of  pharmaceutical  and  sanitary  affairs.  In  this 
connection,  a  resolution  was  added,  declaring  that  the  trade  in 
nostrums  and  trade-marked  specialties  and  their  advertisements  in 
the  newspapers  should  be  strictly  prohibited.  The  American  dele- 
gates refrained  from  voting  on  this  question. 
The  traditional  problem  of  an  international  pharmacopoeia  caused 
a  long  but  unavailing  discussion.  It  was  finally  agreed  that  the 
Latin  language  was  the  best  one  for  a  universal  code  and  that  the 
elaboration  of  such  a  one  should  be  undertaken.  Only  the  dele- 
gates of  the  United  States  voted  against  this  resolution  for  the 
reason  that  the  broad  differences  of  views  in  regard  to  many  im- 
portant galenical  preparations  in  use  in  America,  as  well  as  in  Eng- 
land, tog-ether  with  the  numerous  preparations  and  drugs  used  on 
the  continent  and  not  esteemed  in  America  and  England  as  meri- 
