XciXrf?9aor9m'}    Pharmacopoeia!  Convention  of  1910.  571 
may  be  offered  by  such  a  member  may  be  given  proper  consideration 
and  he  receive  the  credit  that  is  rightfully  due  him. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  has  ever  been  an  important  weapon  for  the 
combating  of  quackery  and  the  protection  of  the  public  health 
and  now  that  its  content  has  the  added  support  of  law  it  is  more 
than  ever  necessary  to  raise  its  standard  and  to  safeguard  its  content 
from  even  the  suspicion  of  being  dominated  by  self-interests. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  is  public  property,  it  rightfully  belongs  to 
the  whole  people,  for  it  is  designed  for  their  protection  and  welfare 
and  is  not  as  some  would  have  us  believe  simply  a  matter  of  conveni- 
ence for  the  benefit  of  physicians  and  pharmacists. 
For  these  various  reasons  the  evidences  of  re-awakening  on  the 
part  of  the  better  element  in  the  medical  profession  to  a  sense  of 
responsibility  in  connection  with  the  Pharmacopoeia  is  to  be  wel- 
comed, for  it  surely  presages  better  conditions  in  pharmacopceial 
matters  in  the  near  future. 
A  recent  contribution  to  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical 
Association  points  out  that  if  the  Pharmacopoeia  is  to  command  the 
respect  and  admiration  of  medical  practitioners  it  must  be  made 
to  reflect  the  best  and  only  the  best  in  American  medicine  so  that 
it  may  serve  as  a  guide  for  the  physician  and  a  safeguard  for  his 
patients. 
When  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States  has  been  devel- 
oped to  that  degree  that  it  is  recognized  as  containing  all  that 
is  good  and  is  purged  of  all  that  has  been  demonstrated  to 
be  useless  or  harmful,  then  and  not  until  then  will  it  be  accepted 
without  question  by  medical  men,  then  and  not  until  then  will  it 
become  a  real  necessity  to  pharmacists,  and  then  and  not  until  then 
will  its  provisions  and  tests  be  gladly  accepted  as  standards  by  all 
who  are  interested  in  standards  for  medicaments  used  in  the  cure 
as  well  as  the  prevention  of  disease,  and  then  will  the  Pharmacopoeia 
be,  as  it  really  should  be,  a  mighty  bulwark  for  the  protection  of  the 
public  health. 
