AD^mberPi9oT'}   Pharmacopoeial  Convention  of  ipio.  567 
them  to  be  employed  for  the  cure  of  diseases,  with  the  best  modes 
of  preparing  them." 
The  first  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States,  as  you  will  remem- 
ber, was  a  composite  of  the  drafts  presented  by  the  several  district 
conventions,  and  the  members  of  the  committee  whose  duty  it  was 
to  prepare  this  material  for  the  press  appear  to  have  been  imbued 
by  the  same  high  ideals  as  to  what  a  Pharmacopoeia  should  be,  for 
they  say  in  the  preface  to  the  Pharmacopoeia  that:  "  It  is  the  object 
of.  a  Pharmacopoeia  to  select  from  among  substances  which  possess 
medicinal  power  those  the  utility  of  which  is  most  fully  established 
and  best  understood,  and  to  form  from  them  preparations  and  com- 
positions in  which  their  powers  may  be  exerted  to  the  greatest 
advantage." 
That  the  several  committees  of  revision  appointed  after  1830  did 
not  hold  strictly  to  this  original  definition  of  what  a  Pharmacopoeia 
should  be  is  evidenced  by  the  remarks  made  by  Dr.  Charles  Rice 
less  than  a  decade  ago  when,  in  discussing  Pharmacopoeial  problems, 
he  asserts  that  the  Pharmacopoeia  has  ceased  to  be  a  work  of  refer- 
ence to  the  physician  because  it  does  not  contain  the  information 
which  the  physician  requires  regarding  the  nature,  properties,  and 
doses  of  some  of  the  most  important  remedies  he  uses. 
Dr.  Sollmann,  in  a  recent  article  on  the  revision  of  the  Pharma- 
copoeia of  the  United  States,  asserts  that  present  conditions  consti- 
tute a  vicious  circle  in  that :  "  Physicians  take  no  interest  in  pharma- 
copoeial revision  because  the  Pharmacopoeia  does  not  represent  their 
vital  interest ;  and  the  Pharmacopoeia  does  not  represent  their  inter- 
est because  they  take  no  interest  in  its  revision." 
The  real  cause  for  this  present-day  lack  of  interest  on  the  part 
of  medical  practitioners  is  well  evidenced  by  the  prevailing  stand- 
ards for  admission  to  the  Pharmacopoeia  as  given  in  an  article  by 
Dr.  H.  C.  Wood,  President  of  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeial 
Convention,  in  which  he  says :  "  A  common  fallacious  belief  is  that 
pharmacopoeial  recognition  means  that  the  drug  recognized  is  of 
value ;  the  fact  is  that  the  United  States  and  other  Pharmacopoeias 
have  in  them  numerous  drugs  of  very  little  use.  ...  If  five 
thousand  doctors  in  the  United  States  (approximately  3  per  cent, 
of  the  licensed  practitioners)  believed  brick  dust  to  be  a  valuable 
remedy  and  habitually  used  it,  brick  dust  would  have  to  go  into  the 
Pharmacopoeia." 
The  difference  between  these  present-day  standards  and  those 
