Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
September,  1901.  J 
International  Congresses. 
445 
international  pharmaceutical  congresses,  commencing  at  Brunswick  in 
1864  and,  as  it  is  to  be  hoped,  adjourned  ad  infinitum  at  Paris  in 
1900,  it  cannot  but  be  conceded  that  they  have  failed  to  realize  the 
anticipations  once  attributed  to  them  and  to  bring  about  some  prac- 
tical or  tangible  results  for  the  consolidation  and  advantage  of  phar- 
macy in  the  various  countries  in  the  course  of  the  evolution  through 
which  it  has  been  passing  in  the  ways  and  byways  of  medical,  sani- 
tary and  industrial  progress.  These  congresses  have  never  been 
international,  except  in  name,  either  in  representation  or  in  numbers, 
and  have  more  and  more  departed  from  their  primary  and  essential 
aims  and  objects.  Beyond  the  constantly  recurring  series  of  stereo- 
typed questions  and  futile  resolutions  they  have  accomplished  noth- 
ing of  productive  and  enduring  consequence. 
Whilst  the  First  International  Congress  originated  in  1864,  as  a 
protest  of  French  and  German  pharmacists  against  the  growing 
nostrum  evil  and  the  initial  stages  of  the  modern  industry  of  phar- 
maceutical specialties  and  proprietaries,  it  may  not  be  amiss,  in 
conclusion,  to  point  to  the  striking  fact  that  the  Ninth  Congress,  in 
1900,  after  a  lapse  of  thirty-five  years,  presented  the  aspect  of  still 
indulging  in  unavailing  deliberations  on  rather  effete  and  doctrinal 
problems,  while  at  the  same  time  and  place  it  was  confronted  by  a 
kindred  well  attended  congress  of  pharmaceutical  manufacturers 
from  twenty-six  European,  American  and  North  African  countries, 
convened  for  the  purpose  of  securing  for  their  calling  and  products 
(pharmaceutical  specialties  and  proprietaries]  a  greater  legal  recog- 
nition as  one  of  the  substantial  and  important  factors  in  the  indus- 
trial, commercial  and  economic  concerns  of  the  world. 
In  addition  it  may  also  be  mentioned  as  a  sign  of  the  altered  con- 
ditions and  the  drift  of  modern  medication  that  at  the  International 
Exposition  in  Paris,  in  1855,  ten  years  before  the  First  International 
Pharmaceutical  Congress  took  place,  only  five  exhibitors  of  pharma- 
ceutical specialties  figured  in  the  catalogue  of  the  exhibition,  whilst 
they  numbered  about  400  at  the  Exhibition  in  1900  at  the  time  of 
the  Ninth  Congress. 
This  remarkable  transition  in  the  domain  and  functions  of  phar- 
macy and  medication  to  less  orthodox  modern  methods  and  uses 
or  abuses  has  been  still  more  sweeping  in  the  United  States  of 
A  merica  in  the  course  of  the  second  half  ot  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  other  primary  motive  for  calling  these  congresses  was  the 
