AMERICAN  PHARMACEUTICAL  ASSOCIATION. 
for  those  drugs  capable  of  them,  with  appropriate  tests  for  detect- 
ing adulterations,  offered  a  report,  which  was  accepted  and  the 
Committee  continued. 
[This  report  embraces  the  following  paragraph  :  "  They  furthermore 
have  felt  discouraged  from  prosecuting  the  work  by  the  disregard  that  is 
paid  to  proper  qualification  in  the  appointment  of  officers  to  carry  out  the 
requirements  of  the  drug  law.  So  glaring  has  this  disregard  on  the  part 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  become,  that  designing  druggists  at  one 
port,  where  a  strict  scrutiny  is  administered,  have  their  importations  of  a 
doubtful  nature  sent  to  another  port,  where  a  less  scrupulous  examiner 
officiates,  so  that  they  may  be  passed.  This  the  Committee  know  to  be  true, 
and  whilst  it  continues,  no  system  of  accurate  standards  of  quality  will  benefit 
the  drug  market  and  screen  out  the  adulterated  and  deteriorated  articles. 
The  Committee  would  earnestly  suggest  to  the  Association  that  some  de- 
cided step  should  be  taken  to  remedy  this  evil,  by  placing  some  check  on 
the  appointing  power,  so  that  it  shall  not  be  able  to  displace  qualified 
officers  by  incompetent  persons,  at  every  phase  of  the  political  kaleidescope. 
If  this  Association,  the  several  Colleges  of  Pharmacy  and  the  National 
Medical  Association,  would  join  in  a  united  effort,  some  impression  might 
be  made  on  Congress  with  a  view  to  remedying  the  evil."] 
Alfred  B.  Taylor,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  appointed  « to 
draft  a  law  regulating  the  sale  of  poisens,"  presented  a  report, 
•which  was  accepted  and  the  Committee  discharged. 
[This  Committee  did  not  succeed  in  drafting  a  law,  from  their  inability 
to  get  at  the  information  relative  to  existing  legal  enactments.  The  report 
says,  "  The  want,  therefore,  of  all  reliable  information  upon  the  subject 
under  consideration  prevents  your  Committee  from  forming  any  matured 
or  intelligent  judgment,  or  from  offering  any  suggestions  as  to  the  expedi- 
ency of  any  particular  legislative  prohibitions,  in  view  of  the  general  welfare. 
It  is  doubted,  however,  whether  poisoning  is  of  less  frequent  occurrence  in 
France,  where  it  is  well  known  very  stringent  restrictions  are  established, 
than  in  an  equal  population  here,  where  no  such  restraints  exist.  If  this  be 
the  case,  it  would  certainly  form  an  argumentagainst  the  establishment  of  any 
such  'protective  policy'  in  our  own  country:  every  barrier  to  absolute 
freedom  of  trade  being  confessedly  an  evil,  justifiable  or  tolerable  only  by 
the  avoidance  thereby  of  other  evils  of  greater  magnitude.  The  popular 
jealousy  of  such  restraints,  and  the  improbability  or  rather  the  impossibility 
of  inducing  any  considerable  number  of  States  to  adopt  a  common  system 
of  Legislation  in  this  matter,  would  also  form  an  objection  to  any  govern- 
mental interference. "] 
The  Committee  appointed  to  inquire  whether  any  and  what 
amendments  were  required  by  the  law  regulating  the  importation 
