Editorial

Deaths by Poisoning.-Notwithstanding the severe restrictions placed upon the sale of poisons in Great Britain, there is no diminution in the toll of deaths due to toxic substances in that country, and it is probable that, for some unaccountable reason, there are more fatalities, in proportion to the population, from this cause in England than in any other country. The precautions which the law requires to be observed in selling poisons are more rigid than in America, but by no means so stringent as those which are enforced on the European continent.

The fault of the English law lies in the fact that while the sale of some poisons is subjected to severe restrictions the traffic in equally potent substances is absolutely unrestricted.

The report of the Registrar General for England and Wales, which has just been issued, shows that in one year deaths caused by poison numbered 750 exclusive of deaths attributed to anaesthetics. which totaled 276. The report from which these calculations are made deals with the year 1911, the reason for the delay in publishing the statistics being the enormous amount of work which has to be done in collecting information from every corner of the country. In 500 cases the poison was taken with suicidal intent, while the remaining cases were due to the poison being taken as a result of negligence. It is astonishing what a predilection "suicides" have for carbolic acid, which is surely one of the most painful of lethal weapons; during the year with which the report deals no less than ninety unfortunates made an end to themselves by this instrument. The reason may be that carbolic acid is the poison most readily available, although the English law requires that in domestic quantities it shall be sold only by registered pharmacists who are required to put it in bottles distinguishable by touch from ordinary bottles and to label it "poison." The poison which comes next in favor among suicides is oxalic acid, which was used in 75 cases. Hydrochloric acid, which by the way is not a poison in the legal sense and may be sold by any retailer, was used in 73 cases and opium or its preparations or derivatives in 48, potassium cyanide in 36, prussic acid in 24, and strychnine in 13. In all the choice of suicides ranged over 50 different poisons. In the cases classified as deaths due to accident, preparations of opium head the list with 58, hydrochloric acid coming next with 26. To veronal is attributed no less than seventeen deaths, a remarkable record for one year. This synthetic substance has now been placed upon the poison schedule and there is some reason for hope that the warning "poison label" will have the effect of impressing upon the public that it is a drug which should not be carelessly administered.

To suggest a remedy for suicidal poisoning is a difficult task, but there is surely some means of diminishing the number of fatal cases due to the negligent use of poisons. It is an offence in Great Britain for a pharmacist to store his poisons in a careless manner-an offence subject to a heavy penalty-but it is obvious that people who purchase the poisons observe no such precautions; and it is evident that the public needs educating in this matter.

Cut Rate Prices have been in vogue so long that no cutter seems to seriously apprehend the near approach of a time when cut rate practices will be out of the question. Neither moral suasion nor legal restrictions have eliminated this form of appealing to a weakness in the traits of human character. The love of believing that we are getting something for nothing keeps up a demand for cut rate practices.

The supreme court has recently decided that the plan followed by "Miles" is not legal and cannot be enforced by calling upon the courts.

This decision does not mean that all hopes of eliminating the cut rate evil must be given up. It merely forces those interested in maintaining prices to devise some new means of handling the problem. A dissenting member of the supreme bench had the goodness to point out that a manufacturer has a perfect right to control the price of his product from his factory to the consumer, provided it does not actually go out of his ownership until it reaches the retail customer. This means that the retail pharmacist and also the jobber must be bona fide agents. Technicalities have saved the lives of many murderers, but technicalities do not enable manufacturers to make agents out of jobbers and retailers unless the manufacturer actually retains the ownership of the goods until they are delivered to the customer.

How the U. S. P. IX Will Differ from the U. S. P. VIII. For the first time in the history of the pharmacopoeia, publicity is given to the proposed changes. Heretofore, the pharmaceutical public has waited until the new work was out and then found out what had been done rather than what changes were likely to be made. Pharmacopoeial revision work was for three-fourths of a century guarded as a profound secret, known only to the initiated. The convention at Washington in 1910 voted for publicity previous to the publication of the U. S. P. IX. As a result, the Board of Trustees is now distributing what is known as Part I of an "abstract of proposed changes with new standards and descriptions." This is a forty-page reprint from the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association for November. No doubt, Part I will be followed by other parts until the entire text of the Pharmacopoeia is covered. The present part deals with chemicals.

When publicity was first proposed, twenty years ago, it came as a shock to many associated with revision work and some doubt is still expressed as to the practical value of the plan.

The pamphlet is copyrighted by the Board of Trustees of the U. S. P. C., but permission to reprint for purposes of comment can be had on application to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Dr. J. H. Beal, Scio, Ohio, from whom, no doubt, copies of the reprint can be obtained by interested parties.

An Esperanto Pharmacopoeia.-Such a work is possible but not probable, at least, in the present day and generation. If a pharmacopoeia is printed in the Esperanto language. it will be an international book. The Eleventh International Pharmaceutical Congress considered the subject of Esperanto as a language, but did not come to a final decision. Theoretically, an international pharmacopoeia should be legible among all Esperanto reading people. Practically, the pharmaceutical world has not worked up to the point where Esperanto is appreciated as a common language. It is now looked upon very much as once was synthetic indigo, synthetic musk and is even today synthetic methyl salicylate. There is something about the living languages that cannot or at least has not been improved by made to order means of communicating thought from one individual to others.

Of course, the time will come when the world will have a common language and perhaps it will be Esperanto, but the contemplated international pharmacopoeia should at least make use of synonyms in Esperanto.

Why is Canada Balsam so High? No one seems to be able to tell. The only explanation that is given is that the article is scarce. A few years ago, the price was low and the supply equal to the demand. Now, the price is high and, while Canada balsam can be obtained at the price, it is not supplied in quantity to more than meet the demand. The destruction of forests in that section of this country where the pinus canadensis grows has not yet reached the point where the trees from which Canada balsam is obtained are no longer a source of supply.

Apprentices who have occasion to handle Canada balsam are likely to be disgusted with its disagreeable physical properties, especially when they attempt to pour the oleo-resin into a narrow-mouthed bottle. Can it be that those who formerly gathered Canada balsam have found some more agreeable and remunerative means of livelihood? Canada balsam is restricted in use as well as in source of supply. Who can explain the high price of recent years?

Radium in Medicine. It is now admitted that radium is a therapeutic agent of permanent value. The difficulty in obtaining radium in quantity and the price which it commands are obstacles in experimentation and particularly in actual medical practice. A recent medical writer asserts that disappointing

results are due to the insufficient amount of radium He claims that a used in ordinary practice. small amount is worse than useless, for it is harmful. The Prussian government has purchased one gram (about 151⁄2 grains of radium) for $87,500, to use in hospitals and for scientific purposes.

Radium survived the first stage of new remedies, It has now reached which is one of exaggeration. its normal state and, after careful and continuous study by well known investigators, radium has been pronounced an important remedy.

The Identification of Specimens was at one time a very important part of examinations before boards of pharmacy and at schools of pharmacy. We refer to the identification of what are generally termed Today the crude drugs and common chemicals. practicing pharmacist has very little occasion to make use of such skill and few opportunities for Neither exercising his ability to recognize drugs. boards of pharmacy nor schools of pharmacy seem to fully realize the gradual change in conditions. We find candidates for registration or graduation given specimens to identify that they are not likely to ever see again unless in pharmaceutical museums or on examinations. Why not restrict the list of drugs to those that are actually sold over the counter or used in such manufacturing as is done in a retail pharmacy?

Medical Education Appreciated. The General Board of Education of Johns Hopkins University has set aside 51,500,000 for the use of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. The income will pay salaries for the heads of the various departments so that such teachers will not be prompted to receive private fees for outside practice. The one and a half mil lion dollars will be known as the William H. Welch Fund. It is the plan to keep the medical teachers so busy in the field of research that they will not think about money.

Perhaps some one who is in a position to spare a million or two will decide that teachers in pharmacy should be similarly encouraged to devote their time and work for the real advancement of pharmacy and not worry about money matters.

One Name, One Dose is the proposition made by a He bephysician in the British Medical Journal. lieves that all preparations belonging to one pharmaceutical class should have the same dose. He would create classes of different strengths in order to put into execution his plan. As an example, pertinctures would be the strongest class, tinctures would be of medium strength and subtinctures the weakest class of tinctures. The writer contends that it is impossible to remember the doses of all remedies. It really is not necessary to carry in mind a long list of doses. Any one physician has a limited materia medica and should be familiar with the doses of the preparations he frequently prescribes.

III. Ph. A., Fox Lake, June 11-13, 1914.

STRAY ITEMS AND COMMENTS

The Time Honored Custom of extending greetings during the holiday season is participated in by the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST.

Help Your Board of Pharmacy.—If you know of a violation of the law, do not nurse a grudge against the board of pharmacy, but give the secretary the facts.

Truthful Labels are now insisted upon by the Department of Agriculture. The manufacturer of an insecticide advertised, that his preparation never lost moisture or strength. The government proved that such was not the case and the defendant pleaded guilty.

Illinois Pharmacists at a Summer Resort. For the first time in the history of the Ill. Ph. A., the association will meet at a summer resort, the place being Fox Lake and the date June 11-13. Some will remember the meeting in a tent at Kankakee, many years ago. That occasion was the nearest approach to a summer resort convention.

Insulated Poison Capsules. According to newspaper reports a New York Chemist has manufactured capsules in which poisons may be placed and the capsule swallowed with impunity. Rubber in the combination prevents the solution of the capsule. He calls them "fool-proof" capsules, as they will do no harm if accidentally swallowed.

Sweet Oil for Laudanum was not a dispensing error, but purposely given by a St. Louis drug clerk when a forlorn girl called for tincture of opium and evidently intended to use it for suicidal purposes. At the city dispensary the physicians discovered the subterfuge to which the clerk had resorted. One ounce of sweet oil with two drops of laudanum was what she had taken.

Before the Days of Veterinary Pharmacy and antedating the study of posology lived in Africa an animal recently named gigantosauros Africanus. Even scientists did not know of this huge antedeluvian until a skeleton was recently discovered in German East Africa. The animal measured at least 170 feet in length and was about 20 feet high. It is fortunate that pharmacists are not called upon to dispense prescriptions for such bulky patients.

One Kind of Postage Stamps, but Many Denominations. The government has simplified the postage stamp system by adding several new denominations so that it is now possible to stamp a package from one to sixty cents with not more than two stamps. What is more, one class of stamps now answers all postage purposes. It is no longer necessary to have a special stamp for registration, another for parcel post and a third for special delivery.

Cheaper Tartaric Acid should be a result of the discovery of an Armenian graduate of the University of California. Instead of making tartaric acid from argol, he manufactures it direct from grape sugar

at a greatly reduced expense. According to newspaper reports, this young chemist will receive $100,000 and royalties for his invention. One of his teachers pointed out some of the unsolved problems in commercial chemistry and the Armenian lessened the number by one.

Segregation a Failure. The municipal clinic, an attempt at thorough and rigid inspection and quarantine of San Francisco prostitutes, has been abolished. The San Francisco Call says: "Established as the clinic was in a mistaken idea that it would result in an improvement of general conditions, San Francisco has found, as every other city has done that has tried the plan, that no form of attempted regulation of the social evil is socially beneficial or even tolerable."

Good Detective Work.-A Pittsburg druggist was burglarized, but did not know that a fine kodak was missing because the burglar removed the camera, but left the case in position on the shelf. Some time after the burglary, the chief of police of Buffalo informed the Pittsburg pharmacist that they had arrested a man with a kodak and, on correspondence with the Eastman Kodak Co., learned that the particular camera had been sold to the Pittsburg dealer. When the serial numbering plan was in force on patent medicines to prevent cut rate prices, detective work was not always so efficient.

Food Cure Faddists.-Every community has its share of such individuals. The practice followed is usually harmless, but occasionally leads to serious results. As an example, some one made "scientific" experiments on rabbits and found that they could not live on a diet consisting entirely of cooked food, consequently, the "learned" experimenter concluded that human beings should live on raw food. Raw turnips gathered in the fields when you are out on a tramp will answer as food, but are not very eleigible for a regular diet. Food has much to do with health but it is as frequently what we do not eat as what we do consume that accounts for the trouble.

The Novel Plan of Increasing Imports of American Cottonseed Oil into northern Africa by introducing modern oil-pressing machinery and encouraging the natives to produce better grades of olive is proposed by Commercial Agent Erwin W. Thompson in a monograph entitled "Edible Oils in the Mediterranean District," just issued by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. The natives will sell the high-grade olive abroad at excellent prices and then import cheaper oils for their own use. The present crisis in the vegetable oil industry in Marseilles is treated at some length in the monograph. For years the undisputed center of the seedoil trade, Marseilles has recently felt the competition of the newer centers where modern machinery and methods are in use. Attention is also given to the oil-trade conditions in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis.

BIND the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST for 1913.

STRAY ITEMS AND COMMENTS

Intoxicated Pharmacists in Iowa should be few and far between. The Board of Pharmacy proposes to revoke the certificates of all registered pharmacists convicted of being habitual drunkards.

Reading in Bed is not so bad after all, according to a recent medical authority. The person should be careful to have the reading matter properly illuminated and held the usual distance from the eyes.

Spiked Gamboge.-The University of Minnesota School of Pharmacy has a sample of gamboge containing several pounds of railroad spikes. As a companion, the school also exhibits pieces of white marble coated with asofoetida and sold for that drug. Human Ostriches with their stomachs full of keys, etc., are becoming so numerous that the ostrich birds are likely to go hungry. The last human ostrich to receive public notice swallowed a bolt such as is used between the knobs of a door, pocket knives, keys, nails and many other things.

Curtailing the Sale of Narcotics.-The City Council of Minneapolis passed an ordinance regulating the sale, distribution, and possession of chloral hydrate, opium and coca leaves, their compounds, preparations and derivatives, and the salts, compounds and preparations of such derivatives.

The Dearth of Qualified Assistants in England is only alleged according to an English authority. The supply of unqualified assistants in the United States is a reality. If you do not believe it, watch for a time the reports made by the boards of pharmacy and see what a small proportion of those who apply for registration make the required average on examination.

Value of Sugar.-The late Sir Henry Thompson, a recognized authority on diet, wrote: "It is scarcely sufficiently known that sugar is a very valuable food where much muscular exercise is taken, and much bodily labor performed. Especially in adults who are becoming exhausted with labor, sugar may be taken largely, with the effect of rapidly affording a fresh supply of power."

White Arsenic is used principally in glass making and in the manufacture of Paris green, lead arsenate, and other insecticides. With the growth of horticulture and the necessarily greater attention paid to killing insect pests, the demand for arsenical insecticides has grown immensely. Experiments conducted by a number of the State agricultural experiment stations have demonstrated the value of arsenic when combined with lime as an effective spray against insect pests, while arsenic solutions have been found of considerable value when used as a dip for cattle and sheep.

The Montana Board Appreciates Educational Instruction. The Montana Board of Pharmacy has decided to back up the Department of Pharmacy at Missoula by requiring for registration the same pre

liminary education as that demanded by the school. Beginning with 1915, all applicants for examination in Montana must have had two years of high school work in addition to four years of practical work. The year following, the educational requirement will be raised to three years of high school work and the next year to four years of high school work. After that, all applicants for registration must have attended two terms in a recognized school of pharmacy.

International Bureau of Information.-At the recent International Congress of Pharmacy held at the Hague, a proposal to form an international pharmacopoeial bureau was discussed, and a commission was appointed to consider the question, and to submit to the International Pharmaceutical Federation at an early date a scheme for the establishment of such a bureau. The commission is composed of seven members, representing, respectively, Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland; most of the members are associated with the revision of their national pharmacopoeias, the English representative being Professor H. G. Greenish, joint editor of the "British Pharmacopoeia," and the American, Professor J. P. Remington, editor of the "United States Pharmacopoeia." Among the duties of such a bureau as that proposed would be the collection and examination of all literature relating to pharmacopoeial revision and the experimental investigation of new drugs and preparations, and no doubt the influence of the bureau would tend to encourage the work already commenced in the direction of the unification of pharmacopoeias.

CASTOR OIL

"SAY, MA, ARE YOU A GRADUATE OF A ST. LOUIS COLLEGE?" -[St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

IN BRIEF

When is a fixed price fixed?

A. Ph. A., Detroit, Mich., August 24, 1914. Uva ursi was first described by Clusius in 1601. Human betterment should be the ambition of every citizen.

The public is proof reader of your signs. See that the words are properly spelled.

The patent office has taken in over seven million dollars since it was established.

Do you study the Market Review in each issue of the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST?

There is money in snuff, at least the late Julia Garrett left an estate of $12,000,000.00.

The kind of drug clerks that are always in demand are scarce. Try and enter that class.

The patent office is the only part of the government business on which a clear profit is made.

Women are not permitted to practice law in England but suffragettes may break the law.

Pleasant memories of the A. Ph. A. convention at Nashville linger with all who were present.

Free sugar will make no difference in the price charged for prescriptions containing syrup.

The eighty billion malignant germs which a Brooklyn scientist has brought are all "bottled up."

The 351 feet dam under construction at Boyce, Ida., attracts the attention of public spirited persons.

It takes a beam of light about eight minutes to travel through space from the sun to the earth. Indiana has a very practical antinarcotic law. Other states will do well to investigate the same. The Delaware Board of Pharmacy advertises that it is a member of the N. A. B. P. That is right.

Diphtheria serum properly administered will immunize a person from the disease for several months.

The bacterial work of Pasteur and Lister arose entirely from an attempt to ascertain the origin of life. Remember that a well-conducted drug store is the best safeguard against a new store in the neighborhood.

"How to Collect a Doctor's Bill," is the title of a new volume which will tell doctors how to collect bills.

One year high school work or its educational equivalent is required for candidates for registration in Missouri.

Bismethylaminotetraminoarsenobenzene

is described by a German journal. We have room only for the name.

The discovery of large deposits of radium producing minerals in Germany has not affected the price of radium.

Apartment houses are now built for chickens. It is probable that the usual apartment house controversies occur.

Advertisers who carefully consider the placing of their contracts are represented in the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST.

Pharmaceutical travelers' auxiliaries have become a prominent feature of state pharmaceutical association meetings.

Sanguinaria should be collected about or immediately after flowering. So says V. O. Homeberg and G. M. Beringer.

"Who was the first cutter?" asks an exchange. Pharmacists are more anxious to know who will be the last cutter.

Hair cutting causes baldness according to a medical specialist. Formerly hair cutting was practiced to

prevent baldness.

Paris now has a Siberian mammoth with flesh parts preserved to a certain extent. This is cold storage with a vengeance.

The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is giving particular attention to the local flora. This includes a number of medicinal plants.

In 1911, the Ohio Valley Druggists' Association adopted resolutions condemning the manufacture and sale of narcotic soothing syrups.

The earth sweeps through space with a velocity of about 2,000 miles a minute. Then, why complain about the speed of automobiles.

"What is ice cream?" is a question discussed in the Medical Review of Reviews. That is all right but no one has asked, "Why is ice cream?"

The daughter of the late William Weightman, quinine manufacturer, will pay an annual income tax of $245,000.00, at least so the newspapers say.

The Wisconsin Pharmacal Company, Milwaukee, has been permanently enjoined from imitating the wrappers used by the Centaur Company, New York City.

Fourteen took the examination for registration as pharmacists in the District of Columbia and only four passed. Evidently, the examinations mean something.

London daily papers have been designated the "best sort of holiday." In the United States, any kind of a holiday, no matter what the weather or the occasion, is welcome.

Under the heading of, "Fifty Years of Pharmacy," Professor John Uri Lloyd extended fraternal greetings from A. Ph. A. and the O. Ph. A. to the N. A. R. D. at Cincinnati.

Goat flesh is recommended by a prominent physician as better and cheaper than mutton for use as a food. This is hard on the goat and no great compliment to the sheep.

Four centuries ago, the plan of a Panama Canal was advocated. It did not take the United States that long, however, to build the canal. Nine years was sufficient time when this country took hold of the work.

A Philadelphia scientist is now in the Hawaiian Islands, studying the tree snails of that country. It was not a Philadelphia editor who asked, "How did a Philadelphia man ever get the idea that he could catch a snail?"