W. H. TIBBALS.

W. H. Tibbals, of Somerset, president of the Kentucky Ph. A., was represented on the cover of the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST for February. He again reminds our readers of the annual meeting at Olympia Springs, June 20-22.

Profits depend on the difference between the cost of the goods, plus the expense of doing business, and the selling price. Remember that war conditions have greatly increased the prices of many drugs. Are you correspondingly advancing the selling price?

The Market Review of MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST will bring quick returns to those who carefully study the same.

Index to Advertisements, Page 28.

Want Advertisement Department, Page 27.

Board of Pharmacy Examination Questions, Page 80.
Market Review, Page 94.

Books for Pharmacists, Page 28.

Editorial

The Pharmacist's Stock in Trade in England has been much more seriously affected by the war than is the case in neutral countries. We feel that we are afflicted with something more than mere annoyance in the United States but we are not called upon to economize, to exercise ingenuity and to exhibit patriotism in the way that our Enlish cousins are expected to do from day to day.

Glycerin is a comparatively recent article of commerce. Some of our readers can remember the time when it was known only as a chemical curiosity. Today, it enters into the commercial world in times of peace to an extent which we do not realize. The conditions of war draw very heavily on the supply of glycerin for use in manufacturing explosives. In England, the pharmaceutical trade finds its use of glycerin restricted and hampered in various ways by the government which is constantly increasing the consumption of glycerin in the Munitions Department. Conditions are going from bad to worse and the future is measured by the duration of the war.

Alcohol has been replaced to some extent in pharmacy by the use of glycerin but the scarcity of that article in England does not help cut the shortage of alcohol. The minister of munitions in England is now taking over the whiskey distilleries and devoting the capacity of these factories to the production of alcohol for use in the manufacture of explosives. At least a dozen of the distilleries in Scotland are now turning out alcohol for the English government instead of Scotch whiskey for the world at large. The new condition of affairs will still further hamper the drug business in England.

The increased war demand for sulphuric acid by the English government affects a long list of articles used in the drug trade of that country. It is needless to mention such things as copper sulphate, magnesium sulphate and carbonated waters. In the case of sulphuric acid, the government dictates the maximum prices which the factories may charge for the article. Various substitutes for sulphuric acid are the subject of experiment. As an example, the socalled nitre cake, which is a by-product from the manufacture of nitric as well as sulphuric acids. This waste has in the past accumulated and proved troublesome as well as expensive in handling. Perhaps, under war conditions, it will be found really useful. Manufacturers in general and pharmacists in particular have been urged to economize and experiment wherever important articles such as alcohol, sulphuric acid and glycerin are concerned. At one time, the drug trade of the world got along without glycerin, but today it is found difficult to proceed without it. It is particularly important in various toilet articles of the drug trade.

Acetone, is not as familiar to the retail pharmacist as are alcohol and glycerin but it is quite as important to the drug trade in general. Such is the demand for acetone by the government in England that chloroform makers have been going back to older processes for the manufacture of chloroform and thus avoiding the use of acetone. The English government has very strict regulations governing the handling of acetone and thus the product is almost entirely diverted to the use of the Department of Munitions.

Not exactly drugs but at the same time handled by druggists come other articles which are dwindling in supply and for which the demand is increasing. Tobacco is a good example. Paper is another item demanding economy. The English pharmacists are urged to use as little paper as possible, even for labels.

As time passes and the war period enters the second half of the second year, we find the drug trade of the world making heroic efforts to adapt itself to the new conditions. The uncertainty of the duration of the war is always a disturbing element but pharmacists are patient, conservative and industrious. One redeeming situation in neutral countries as well as in those at war is the fact that the public at large is very ready to accept the war as an explanation for high prices, small supplies and for the recommendation of substitutes in materia medica as well as in the purely commercial world.

The Missouri Pharmaceutical Association, organized in 1879, at a time when State societies of the kind were few and far between, has a record of good work which promises a continuation in keeping with similar bodies throughout the country. The Mo. Ph. A. came into existence as a result of combined efforts on the part of Missouri pharmacists who felt that the State should be on the list of those having pharmacy laws. St. Louis, for some time, has been under a law which regulated the practice of pharmacy in the State. It required only a few months' work to procure a Missouri pharmacy law which answered very well the conditions of pharmacy in those days and did much towards protecting the public from incompetent persons practicing pharmacy. The law has been amended from time to time in keeping with the general trend of pharmaceutical legislation.

The Mo. Ph. A. is quite cosmopolitan in nature and the volumes of annual proceedings form an extensive library on both trade and educational pharmaceutical problems as well as professional, technical and legislative matters. Missouri was the first State in the Union to introduce the Woman's Auxiliary feature, by having the members bring their families with them to the conventions. It was one of the most recent to have an actual "Woman's Auxiliary" but the attendance has for many years been made up very largely of women and children whose presence in no way interferred with the business sessions. It was the Mo. Ph. A. which first separated the retail

pharmacists and the traveling salesmen resulting in the organization of the Missouri Pharmaceutical Travelers' Association as a more efficient means of co-operation on the part of salesmen with the retail drug trade of the State, as represented in the Mo. Ph. A. It was the Mo. Ph. A. which early recognized the value of meeting at summer resorts and continuing a number of successive conventions in the same place. The Mo. Ph. A. publishes a very attractive as well as interesting and instructive volume of proceedings without calling on the jobbing and manufacturing trade for advertising patronage. The Mo. Ph. A. papers and discussions are frequently quoted by the Reporter on Progress of Pharmacy of the American Pharmaceutical Association and find a place in the Digest of Criticisms of the U. S. P. published by the United States Government.

The Missouri Pharmaceutical Association will hold its thirty-eighth annual meeting at Excelsior Springs for four days beginning June 13. The pharmacists of Kansas City very naturally look upon a convention at their very door as one for which they must be largely responsible. The entertainment to be furnished by the Travelers is in the hands of a Kansas City Committee composed of men of experience and judgment. This will be the first meeting held at Excelsior Springs since 1896 and we predict for 1916 one of the most largely attended, enthusiastic, progressive and good all around conventions ever held by a State pharmaceutical association. Visitors from neighboring States are extended a cordial invitation to be present. The active president and other officers, as well as various committees, are not waiting until the last moment but have well in hand, at this early date, the various plans for the week of work, recreation and pharmaceutical consulation and deliberation.

Prohibition in Colorado is making trouble for the medical profession. Those in the cities who use spirituous liquors in their materia medica employ special prescription blanks prepared for the purpose and get along without difficulty. A large number of physicians located in small places where drug stores are not conducted or where the local pharmacists refuse to carry liquor are unable to prescribe nor can they carry in stock and dispense spirituous liquors even for medicinal purposes. The Colorado Board of Pharmacy has been asked to register as pharmacists such physicians who are of good reputation and desire to procure liquors as they do other medicines for dispensing purposes. This the Board of Pharmacy cannot legally do. What is more, it is questionable whether or not a physician so licensed could possess and dispense liquors unless he actually conducted a drug business.

The Rocky Mountain Druggist is authority for the statement that the physicians of Colorado prescribe very little liquor, otherwise the inconvenience would be much greater than has thus far been experienced. The Colorado physicians find aromatic spirit of am

monia, nitroglycerin, strychnine and other stimulants sufficient for their drugs. While liquors are not obtainable, such alcoholic preparations as compound tincture of gentian and elixirs are at the command of the prescriber in Colorado.

The fact that the U. S. P. IX will not contain whiskey or brandy will evidently be of little concern to the medical profession in Colorado.

U. S. P. Synonyms and the Food and Drugs Act.There is an inclination, the pharmaceutical country over, to discourage the use of synonyms, as applied to medicines. The revisers of the Pharmacopoeia felt that they could not get entirely away from the use of synonyms but discouraged the use of the same by limiting as much as was thought practical the number of synonyms mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia. What is more, the committee hit upon the plan of placing in the index of the pharmacopoeia synonyms that are not given in the text of the body of the work. Some of the dealers who feel the heavy hand of the law sought to justify their position in selling under-standard drugs by making use of synonyms which are not given in the body of the Pharmacopoeia. The Department of Agriculture in a recent decision announces that synonyms appearing in the index of the U. S. P. VIII will be recorded as pharmacopoeial names. Goods sold under such names and not coming up to the standard of the Pharmacopoeia will be considered as misbranding unless a statement is made on the label saying wherein the goods fail to meet with the pharmacopoeial requirement. This ruling is in accordance with what might be expected as an official pronouncement.

The Procter Memorial Plans Now Before Congress. --Without hesitation or proscrastination, each reader of the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST should at once write to his Congressman urging a favorable vote on H. R. 11076. This appropriates $2,000.00 for the erection of a pedestal and base to be used with the monument of William Procter, Jr., which the American Pharmaceutical Association is having prepared for a place in the Smithsonian Institution grounds at Washington, D. C. The A. Ph. A. started this movement several years ago and various other organizations such as the N. A. R. D. and the State pharmaceutical associations have given substantial co-operation.

The U. S. P. IX. It will not be long before the present Pharmacopoeia (U. S. P. VIII) will be superceded by a decennial revision. The "new" Pharmacopoeia, as it is generally termed, as each revision makes it appearance, is now in the printing. It will be on the market within the next few weeks. The Board of Trustees will fix a date when the U. S. P. IX will legally succeed the U. S. P. VIII as an authority. Thus, the revised Pharmacopoeia will not be the guide for pharmacists until some time during the summer or fall.

Bind the MEYER BROTHERS DRUGGIST for 1915. It will prove a useful volume for reference.