Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
September.  1901.  f 
In ternational  Co ngr esses . 
443 
The  inaugural  meeting  took  place  in  one  of  the  halls  of  the  Paris 
School  of  Pharmacy  on  August  2d.  President  Petit  being  in  the 
chair,  and  Mr.  Cronin  acting  as  secretary. 
The  first  subject  brought  to  discussion  was  the  chronic  question 
of  an  international  pharmacopoeia.  Prof.  A.  Tschirck,  of  Berne,  stated 
that  ail  efforts  ventured  upon  by  any  one  of  the  preceding  con- 
gresses had  utterly  failed  in  producing  an  international  pharma- 
copoeia or  agreement  for  a  uniform  strength  of  potent  remedial  prepa- 
rations, because  only  a  limited  number  of  countries  was  represented  at 
the  meetings,  the  propositions  made  were  only  fragmentary  and  not 
sufficiently  studied  beforehand,  nor  were  the  delegates  in  possession 
of  official  instructions  from  their  governments.  Therefore,  every 
draft  for  an  international  pharmacopoeia  had  been  shelved  with  the 
resolutions  passed  and  the  meetings  closed.  He,  therefore,  sug- 
gested that  this  congress  should  send  to  the  Belgian  Government, 
which  had  the  matter  in  hand,  a  communication  containing  the  fol- 
lowing proposition : 
"  That  the  governments  of  the  countries  most  interested  should 
each  appoint  at  least  two  official  delegates,  and  that  ,  the  minor 
States  should  also  send  representatives.  That  the  programme 
should  be  drawn  up  in  detail,  and  studied  by  the  delegates  before 
the  meeting  of  the  congress,  and  that  the  fundamental  principles  of 
the  programme  should  be  communicated  to  the  governing  medical 
corporations  of  the  countries  represented,  with  the  request  that  they 
should  be  considered  and  reported  on.  In  addition  to  the  official 
delegates  representing  the  States,  the  principal  academies  of  medi- 
cine and  pharmaceutical  societies  should  be  asked  to  send  dele- 
gates." After  quite  a  discussion  on  these  propositions  a  committee 
consisting  of  nine  delegates  was  appointed  to  consider  the  matter 
and  to  report  at  a  later  session  of  the  congress.  At  the  fourth 
session  this  committee  proposed  the  adoption  of  the  following 
recommendation  : 
"To  have  a  comparative  table  prepared  showing  the  differences  in  strength 
of  medicaments  bearing  the  same  name  in  different  pharmacopoeias.  To  have 
this  table  distributed  to  the  pharmacopoeia  commissions,  to  the  academies  of 
medicine  and  the  pharmaceutical  colleges  and  associations  of  the  various  coun- 
tries with  the  request  to  take  this  matter  into  due  consideration  at  their  next 
pharmacopoeia  revision,  and  to  adopt  as  much  as  possible  a  uniform  standard 
of  strength,  and  where  differences  still  remain,  to  call  attention  to  such  in  foot- 
notes. 
