Am.  Jour.  Pharrn.  ) 
September,  1909.  j 
Evolution  of  Pharmacology. 
413 
cologic  lines  are  being  carried  on.  So  far  these  investigations  appear 
to  have  been  devoted  largely  to  contaminations  in  food  products, 
stock  feeds,  and  the  economic  development  of  the  animal  industry  in 
agriculture.  The  work  in  connection  with  these  several  bureaus,  as 
indicated  by  the  results  already  obtained  in  connection  with  "  loco 
weeds  "  and  the  poisonous  nature  of  the  several  oil  cake  residues 
used  as  stock  feeds,  promises  to  be  of  inestimable  economic  value. 
The  first  effort  to  develop  a  similar  line  of  work,  bearing  more 
directly  on  the  health  and  well-being  of  the  human  kind,  was  evi- 
denced by  an  Act  approved  July  i,  1902,  entitled:  "An  Act  to 
increase  the  efficiency  and  change  the  name  of  the  United  States 
Marine-Hospital  Service."  This  Act  provides  for  the  creation  of 
a  Division  of  Pharmacology  in  the  Hygienic  Laboratory  of  the 
Public  Health  and  Marine-Hospital  Service. 
Owing  to  lack  of  accommodations  active  work  in  connection  with 
this  Division  was  not  inaugurated  until  March,  1904,  when  Dr.  Reid 
Hunt  was  appointed  chief  of  the  Division  of  Pharmacology,  Hygienic 
Laboratory,  and  entered  upon  his  duties. 
While  this  Division  is,  primarily,  engaged  in  routine  work  for 
the  several  branches  of  the  Public  Health  and  Marine-Hospital 
Service,  it  has  even  now  amply  demonstrated  the  possibilities  inher- 
ent in  a  Division  of  this  kind.  Apart  from  the  routine  work,  which 
is  time-consuming  without  making  for  publicity,  the  Division  of 
Pharmacology,  Hygienic  Laboratory,  has  contributed  materially  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  action  of  alcohol,  adrenalin,  and  the  related 
compounds,  thyroid,  and  a  number  of  other  more  or  less  important 
drugs  and  chemicals. 
The  Division  also  assisted  in  developing  the  American  standard 
for  antidiphtheritic  serum,  the  control  of  which,  with  allied  products, 
is  vested  in  the  Hygienic  Laboratory  of  the  Public  Health  and 
Marine-Hospital  Service.  Important  as  the  control  of  sera  and 
various  biologic  products  undoubtedly  is  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  from  the  point  of  usefulness  it  is  secondary  in  impor- 
tance to  the  need  for  developing  reliable  and  readily  applied  stand- 
ards and  tests  for  some  of  the  more  potent  and  medicinally  more 
valuable  drugs  in  our  materia  medica. 
While  there  is  scarcely  a  single  drug  the  uses  and  limitations  of 
which  have  been  satisfactorily  defined,  and  while  the  pharmacologic 
study  of  our  present  materia  medica  will  no  doubt  require  the  con- 
