Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  > 
September,  1909.  J 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
419 
the  past  five  years  no  less  than  thirty  medical  colleges,  through 
merger  or  otherwise,  have  voluntarily  closed  their  doors.  This 
action  has  been  taken  chiefly  that  higher  standards  of  medical 
education  might  prevail.  It  is  quite  evident  that  we  are  entering 
upon  an  era  of  reconstruction  in  medical  education,  and  that  event- 
ually the  medical  schools  in  the  United  States,  collectively,  will  be 
equal  if  not  superior  to  those  of  any  other  country. — /.  Am.  Med. 
Assoc.,  1909,  v.  52,  p.  1842. 
Dr.  J.  F.  Stevens,  the  dean  of  the  Nebraska  College  of  Medicine, 
in  an  open  letter  announcing  the  closing  of  his  school  asserts  that : 
"While  academic  training  and  opportunity  (in  America)  have 
grown  into  magnificent  and  commanding  proportions,  the  profes- 
sional schools,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  minority,  have  re- 
mained essentially  elementary  or  even  worse.  In  medicine  the  spirit 
of  progress  has  at  last  become  supreme  and  on  all  sides  may  be  seen 
the  work  of  destruction,  1  e-organization  and  rebuilding."  (/.  Am. 
Med.  Assoc.,  1909,  v.  52,  p.  1862.)  It  might  be  added,  in  this  con- 
nection, that  the  rapid  progress  that  is  being  made  in  matters  relating 
to  medical  education  has  been  brought  about  directly  by  the  efforts 
of  the  Council  on  Medical  Education  of  the  American  Medical 
Association. 
Secrecy  vs.  Lack  of  Knozvledge  in  Medicine. — A  recent  editorial 
in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  (1909,  v.  53, 
p.  211)  discusses  the  repeatedly  made  insinuation  that  because  the 
physician  does  not  know  all  about  the  active  constituents  of  some 
of  the  well-known  drugs  it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  know  much 
about  the  constituents  of  the  proprietary  remedies  offered  him  by 
manufacturers.  The  writer  points  out  that  the  fact  that  the  physi- 
cian has  not  been  able  to  fathom  all  of  the  mysteries  of  some  of  the 
more  widely  used  drugs,  the  physiological  actions  of  which  are 
familiar  to  him,  is  no  reason  why  he  should  even  countenance  prep- 
arations the  mystery  of  which  is  purely  artificial  and  exists  only 
for  the  purpose  of  gain  cr  deceit. 
The  Valuation  of  Galenical  Preparations. — Earl  Dieterich,  a 
German  manufacturer  of  pharmaceutical  preparations,  discusses  the 
valuation  of  ready-made  galenical  preparations  and  points  out  that 
the  capable  pharmacist  can,  and  that  it  is  his  duty  to,  control  the 
preparations  that  he  buys  so  as  to  be  able  to  assure  the  physician 
that  the  medicaments  furnished  are  fully  in  conformity  with  the 
official  requirements.    He  also  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  this 
