414 
Evolution  of  Pharmacology. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pharru, 
j  September,  1909. 
certed  efforts  of  pharmacologists  for  many  years  to  come,  there  are 
certain  problems  that  merit  immediate  and  thorough  investigation. 
Among  the  drugs,  or  rather  classes  of  drugs,  that  require  exhaus- 
tive study  to  clear  up  a  number  of  mooted  points  it  will  suffice  to 
point  to  the  anaesthetics,  the  hypnotics,  and  the  mydriatics,  to  say 
nothing  of  such  even  more  difficult  problems  as  are  offered  by  sub- 
stances like  thyroid,  the  suprarenal  gland  and  its  active  principle,, 
ergot,  strophanthus,  and  digitalis.  The  latter  drug  is  a  particularly 
good  illustration  of  the  need  for  developing  a  satisfactory  method, 
for  controlling  its  preparations. 
The  work  that  has  been  done  with  digitalis,  and  in  the  aggregate 
it  probably  exceeds  the  work  done  on  any  other  drug,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  the  active  principle  of  the  suprarenal  gland,  all 
goes  to  demonstrate  the  need  for  conscientious  and  active  control. 
Gottlieb,  Focke,  and  Lowe  have  all  called  repeated  attention  to 
the  variable  nature  of  preparations  of  digitalis.  Cushny  asserts 
that  he  found  the  so-called  active  principles  of  digitalis  to  vary 
even  more  than  the  galenical  preparations,  and  Dixon  has  no  hesi- 
tancy in  asserting  that  "  Many  hundreds  of  patients  die  annually 
from  digitalis  and  allies  not  possessing  the  virtues  which  are  required 
of  them." 
With  this  evidence  before  us  it  need  not  surprise  us  to  learn 
that  no  less  an  authority  than  Frankel,  the  noted  German  clinician, 
suggests  that  the  government  should  provide  laboratories  in  which 
the  physician  can  have  the  digitalis  preparations  which  he  uses  in 
his  practice  physiologically  tested. 
In  this  connection  we  must  remember  that  a  preparation  once 
tested  is  still  subject  to  decomposition  and  that  decomposition- 
products  of  digitalis  are  particularly  toxic,  more  so  even  than  the 
active  principles  themselves,  without,  however,  the  regulating  influ- 
ence on  the  heart.  Bearing  in  mind  then  that  inferior  or  decom- 
posed digitalis  preparations  may  shorten  life  either  because  of  their 
inefficiency  or  because  of  the  toxic  principles  that  have  been  devel- 
oped, and  remembering  the  all-important  function  of  digitalis  and 
its  wide-spread  use  in  certain  cases  of  circulatory  disturbance,  there 
are  but  few  medical  men  at  least  who  will  not  agree  with  Frankel 
that  some  method  of  guaranteeing  the  activity  and  the  usefulness  of 
the  preparations  of  digitalis,  at  the  time  they  are  to  be  used,  is 
highly  desirable. 
How  this  is  to  be  done  remains  a  problem  for  the  future  to  solve. 
