PHILADELPHIA.

ISSUED SEMI-MONTHLY BY

THE AMERICAN DRUGGIST AND PHARMACEUTICAL RECORD is issued on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Changes of advertisements should be received ten days in advance of the date of publication. Remittances should be made by New York exchange, post office or express money order or registered mail. If checks on local banks are used 10 cents should be added to cover cost of collection. The publishers are not responsible for money sent by unregistered mail, nor for any money paid except to duly authorized agents. All communications should be addressed and all remittances made payable to American Druggist Publishing Co., 62-68 West Broadway, New York.

CHICAGO

nate by ballot the fellow student who they believe could be expected "to do the right thing under all circumstances." The successful student is honored with a special prize by the faculty. As evidence of the student's capability and standing in his class nothing better could be educed. We believe it to be the highest type of judgment by his peers.

PECULIARITIES OF THE NEW YORK PHARMACY LAW.

The possibilities of the New York State Pharmacy law are only beginning to be dimly perceived by grocer-druggists and department stores. Attorney-General Cunneen, in a recent interpretation of the law, declared that paregoric and witchhazel may not be lawfully sold in establishments which do not conduct a licensed drug department. While witchhazel may not be sold, dye stuffs, essence of peppermint, glycerin, sal ammoniac and oxalic acid (!) may be trafficked in without let or hindrance. We suppose it will only be a short time before the New York law will be interpreted in the same way as the Pharmacy act of Great Britain is, and proprietary medicines containing scheduled poisons will come under the operation of the law and require to be provided with poison labels.

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'NERVOUS DEBILITY"

FAKIRS.

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It would seem that the Federal authorities have at last found an effective means of suppressing the quack nostrum manufacturers who advertise in the lay press to cure tuberculosis, nervous debility," etc. The Post Office Department proposes to overhaul the worthless patent medicines and issue fraud orders against the venders of them, Newspapers carrying the objectionable advertisements will be notified, and wherever papers so notified refuse to eliminate the objectionable matter the Post Office Department will exclude them from the mails. While this action of the Post Office Department will, perhaps, be denounced as harsh and tyrannical by a lot of the rural weeklies and a section of the religious press which derive their support from nasty advertisements, it will be hailed with delight by doctors and pharmacists, who are aware of the harm that many of these infamous advertising tricksters do to thousands of young men who are easily influenced by the disgusting literature which is printed as advertising matter in many otherwise respectable newspapers.

RETAILERS AND PROPRIETORS.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

A very noteworthy contribution to the history of the efforts made in this country to regulate the selling price of proprietary remedies is contained in the address delivered by Thomas V. Wooten before the annual meeting of the Proprietary Association of America, held in Chicago a week ago. The attitude of the retail pharmacists toward the whole question of proprietary medicine sales is clearly and sharply defined, and Mr. Wooten's address, which is printed in full in this issue, is deserving of a careful perusal by every one interested.

EXCEPTIONS AND MANDAMUS PROCEEDINGS.

Exception has been taken by the New York Retail Druggists' Association to the wording of the official announcements of the State Board of Pharmacy elections to be held in this city next week, and a writ of peremptory mandamus has been applied for in order that the court may decide whether citizenship of the United States and of the State of New York is a necessary qualification for voters in addition to the qualifications already prescribed by law. Judge Blanchard decided this point two years ago in favor of those who protested that citizenship was not a necessary requirement, and unless the law has been changed in the interval this decision will still hold. Another bone of contention is the date of expiration of Charles S. Erb's term of appointment. The official notice puts this date as January 2, 1905, and the protestants contend that Mr. Erb's appointment holds only until the date of the annual election next week. In this they are supported by President Brundage, who states specifically in his report of the work of the board for the year 1903 that Mr. Erb's term of office extends only the annual election in the Eastern Section, in June, 1904."

"until

cases.

The Pharmacist's Opportunity.

With the ever growing demands of specialization in modern practice the busy physician of to-day has but little time to devote to the important task of urine examination in his routine How often does the physician, who taught careful and accurate methods in the medical school, gradually and imperceptibly cast aside the requirements of urine examinations under the stress of daily routine and content himself with the crudest tests for the more essential morbid constituents of urine, albumen and glucose, with possibly a glance or two at the microscopic image of the sediment. And yet medical and surgical diagnosis to-day regards a thorough and accurate examination of the urine as an indispensable element, and no one so highly appreciates this fact as the modern physician. Here, then, is the pharmacist's opportunity. In virtue of his special training in chemistry and microscopy and of his laboratory equipment, the pharmacist is well qualified to take charge of routine urine examinations, and to relieve the doctor of this task, for which he has usually neither the time nor inclination.

The equipment for such urine examination is not at all elaborate; indeed, all that is usually required will be found in the laboratory and prescription department of a drug store of modest pretensions. A microscope of the highest power is not absolutely necessary, and very good American instruments may be bought at moderate prices, which fulfill all the requirements of the work with the exception of examinations for bacteria. Beginning with a moderate priced microscope, the owner can, moreover, always add a lens of high power (1-12 oil immersion) to his equipment when the growth of business in this line warrants the investment.

The art of urine examination, at least that part of it required in routine work, is not difficult to master for the trained pharmacist. Its essentials are now taught in the foremost pharmaceutical colleges, but some of the best work in this line is done by pharmacists who are self-taught in uranalysis, and who have acquired the art by constant experimenting and by the use of one of the many excellent manuals on the subject.

These points being disposed of, the need for the work, the moderate outlay for equipment, and the small effort required in mastering the art of urine examinations, the question arises, of what material advantage to the pharmacist can this special work possibly be?

In the first place, the work of examining urine specimens for physicians may be made to pay an income which fully compensates for the time and material invested. The fees will, of course, vary according to the locality, the demands for the work, and the various other conditions of which the individual pharmacist is the best judge. In the large cities there are pharmacies with exceptionally good equipment for urinary work, who employ experts specially for this department, where a charge of from $2 to $10 is made for an examination, the lower fee including mere qualitative tests for the ordinary morbid constitutents. The fee would also naturally vary as to whether the patient is expected to pay for the examination, or, as is sometimes the case, the physician has the work done at his own expense. In no case need the fee be so low, however, as to make the work anything but profitable.

In the second place, the possibilities of urinary examination as a means of advertising the professional side of a pharmacist's establishment must not be forgotten. In order to establish and maintain a good clientèle for urinary examination the pharmacist must make the physicians in his town or neighborhood know that he is doing this work, and, what is more, he

must impress upon them the fact that he is prepared to do the work better than any one else, at the lowest possible figures, with the utmost promptness. For this purpose various means of advertising among physicians may be resorted to, the best of these being a neatly typewritten letter, with a card containing schedule of fees, etc., followed by a personal visit to the physician, extending to him a cordial invitation to visit the store and satisfy himself as to the thoroughness and accuracy of the work.

Blank forms for reports should be printed in neat, but not necessarily expensive, style, and arrangements made for immediate reports by telephone, when requested by the physician, and this fact should be announced upon all the stationery pertaining to the work. Messenger calls for the specimens and prompt mailing or delivery of the reports will enhance the value of the system. The pharmacist who adopts these simple measures will at once be placed in the enviable position of being considered by the physicians as a thorough and competent man in his calling. The good effect of this on the prescription trade of his store will soon become evident.

The Forthcoming Pharmacopœia.

The most interesting feature to pharmacists of the meeting of the American Medical Association, held last week at Atlantic City, was the paper presented by Prof. Joseph P. Remington, chairman of the Committee on Revision of the United States Pharmacopoeia. As to the date of issue, it seems that the work will probably appear in October, some uncertainty still existing as regards the precise date, as the constant appearance of new remedies and the rapid advances in chemical and pharmaceutical knowledge necessitate frequent changes.

The authoritative statement that the Pharmacopoeial standards will be less rigorous than those of 1890 and more in harmony with the existing commercial conditions, will be welcomed by all, as the prosecutions which have been brought in the food and drug laws of the various States have demonstrated the necessity for greater liberality in this direction. A certain minimum standard will be given in each case which is based on the market conditions of each particular chemical, but which will provide a standard of sufficient purity for medicinal purposes. A special clause will be inserted to the effect that the work applies solely to substances to be used as medicines, and it is expected that the insertion of this clause will relieve the situation in many cases involving legal prosecutions.

The new Pharmacopoeia will be the first national authority to recognize the standards of potent remedies as established by the International Congress held at Brussels in August, 1902. This is an important step toward the unification of the more potent remedies, some of the most important features being as follows: All arsenical solutions will have a strength of 1 per cent., the preparations of the more potent drugs will have a strength of 10 per cent., and those of the less potent drugs 20 per cent. Full details regarding these standards appear in our issue for November 10, 1902, page 302. This will make important changes in our own tinctures of aconite and veratrum viride. We are told that there are to be comparatively few alterations in the nomenclature, though the misnomer carbolic acid is to give way to the correct title, phenol. The use of English synonyms will be relegated to the index. Several synthetic chemicals will be entered under chemical names, which may at first be somewhat confusing to those who are familiar only with the trade names. For the first time in the history of the United States Pharmacopoeia average doses will be mentioned.

Patent Medicines and the Post Office.

A great deal of unnecessary alarm has been manifested in proprietary medicine circles, and from what we can gather, a great deal more has been felt than has been manifested, concerning the action of the Postmaster General of the United States in regard to the exclusion from the mails of journals carrying advertisements of certain proprietary preparations.

The first intimation of the impending trouble was made public in a speech made in the United States Senate in connection with the matter of the Pure Food bill. Senator Heyburn in discussing this bill on May 11 quoted a report from the Post Office Department in which the composition of several patent medicines was furnished, together with comments regarding their possible efficacy. The mere names of some of these preparations would in most cases be quite sufficient to condemn them. They are Dr. Ferris's Medicines, "Regenerative Tablets"

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and "Mormon Bishop's Pills." They belong to a class which have long disgraced the advertising columns of the country weeklies, and even of some of the metropolitan journals. These advertisements, headed 'Men made vigorous," "I save men," "Weak men," etc., are not only commercial frauds, but are obscene in their suggestiveness, and are fraught with real danger in that they delude the young and prevent them from consulting reputable and competent physicians, who could help where this is possible.

We have every assurance that the attention of the Post Office Department will be restricted solely to this class. We have been aware of this movement since it was first inaugurated, and the department seems to have been most fortunate in securing and acting upon the advice of men of mature judgment and sufficiently wide knowledge to enable them to distinguish between what may be called legitimate proprietary preparations and this class of patent medicines which does not meet with the countenance of any portion of the drug trade, except the particular individuals engaged in the manufacture of them, and who are not entitled to be considered as members of the drug trade, as their methods are wholly at variance with those prevalent in the trade at large.

We feel convinced that the owners of legitimate proprietary preparations need feel no uneasiness lest they be attacked by the Post Office, and they certainly need not fear so long as the present programme is continued, as we have the assurance of the Postmaster General that no action has been contemplated by the department save in cases involving obscenity and fraud.

We believe that when the purpose of the campaign is understood the drug trade at large will give its most active and cordial support to the movement undertaken by the Post Office Department, and we have been somewhat surprised to see some of the journals which purport to be in touch with the pharmaceutical affairs becoming almost hysterical in their vociferations of fear that the Post Office Department was about to do some damage to the proprietary medicine interests.

It is possible, of course, that in the hands of imprudent and ill-advised officials the regulations regarding the use of the mails might be so construed as to work irreparable damage to the legitimate proprietary medicine interests, but this possibility hardly amounts to a probability. There is a possibility, which is, unfortunately, inherent in the present method of regulating Post Office affairs, for the statutory enactments covering the administration of the Post Office affairs are so broad, so vague and so general as to virtually give the force of law to regulations issued by the Postmaster General without any recourse to any higher authority, except through the troublesome medium of the courts. It would be better for all concerned if these matters were governed by laws and not by regulations promulgated by individuals.

THE POSITION OF THE RETAIL TRADE IN THE PRESENT .CRISIS.'

BY THOMAS V. WOOTEN,

Secretary of the National Association of Retail Druggists, Chicago, Ill.

Allow me to say at the outset that we are not here to tell you gentlemen how to run your business. We realize fully the difference between making proprietary pills by the thousand and making them by the million, between manufacturing cough syrup and blood purifier by the dozen or gross and manufacturing these preparations by the carload or trainload, between caring for a business which amounts to a few thousands of dollars annually and managing one whose volume is from ten to a hundred times as large. Every man to his own business. You would feel as ill at ease behind the counter in one of our stores as we would at the manager's desk of one of your mammoth establishments. You would not know how to go about solving the perplexing problems that are coming up hourly for decision by us, and we would be completely floored by the difficulties you have to meet and overcome. Let it be fully understood, then, that we are not here under false pretenses; our sole purpose in coming here is to better the condition of the retail drug trade through securing effective co-operation by you. We make no pretense that we are anxious about your welfare, because we are confident you are well able to take care of yourselves; however we, the final distributors of your goods, are constantly coming into possession of facts which it will pay you well to know and understand, because these facts will enable you to make more money-will help you to put your business on a broader, firmer basis.

THE PROBLEM TO SOLVE.

The difficult problem of how to make the selling of your goods profitable is one which we have long been trying to solve. six years ago this fall our association was formed that we might the more easily accomplish the task I have mentioned. among others, by combining our wisdom and our energies. That the conditions are better now than they were then is an undeniable fact. Sometimes we feel that the progress we have made has been slower by far than it should have been, but we realize that education is always a slow process, and ours was the difficult task of educating not only our own people, but (we say it with becoming modesty) the proprietors and wholesalers as well. That the proprietors are now so thoroughly aroused to the necessity of giving us loyal co-operation is one of the most encouraging signs of the times. In this connection I want to assure Chairman Pierce and his fellow workers of the Washington Promise Committee that their efforts to carry out the plans that were talked over by us at our convention last fall has the heartiest appreciation of the entire membership of the association we represent.

HOW THE PROPRIETORS' INTERESTS ARE JEOPARDIZED.

It would be superfluous to discuss here the causes of price cutting on your goods. The department stores and cut rate drug stores that exploit them for advertising hope to profit by making the public believe that everything they handle is sold at much less than the usual price or the proper price, as 55 or 65 cents for a well-known proprietary is less than $1. Thus your interests are jeopardized in two ways; first, by creating the suspicion in the public mind that the articles offered may not be genuine, or, if genuine, are of lower quality than the kind originally put out and upon which the reputation of the article was established, a suspicion the cutters are glad to make use of, since it gives them a better chance to push nonsecrets; and, secondly, by antagonizing your natural friends, the retail druggists, whose influence in making or marring the reputation of any article is far greater than the average proprietor seems to understand. The well-known proprietary that is sold at cut price has no friends and many bitter and resourceful enemies among its retail distributors. The reason that more advertising at greater cost is necessary each succeeding year to produce the same volume of business is that the intensity of the retailers' animosity toward these profitless goods

1 Address delivered before the Proprietary Association of America at the twenty-sixth annual meeting in Chicago, June 1, 1904.

is constantly increasing, while the means at command for killing the effects of the proprietors' advertising is increasing also. The article in The Ladies' Home Journal for May, entitled "The Patent Medicine Curse," is earnestly recommended to consumers by that large class of salesmen who are subsidized to sell, in lieu of these goods, substitutes of varying degrees of worth and worthlessness.

WHAT PRICE CUTTING MEANS TO THE RETAIL DRUGGIST.

Do you fully understand what cut prices on proprietaries mean to the retail druggist? Do you realize that a druggist doing business under ordinary conditions (conditions where 25 per cent. of the gross business is immediately used up in expenses) must sell $8 proprietaries for 91 cents, otherwise he loses money when he handles them, and that for $8.75 proprietaries he must get not less than 97 cents, otherwise he is selling them at less than cost? It is all a matter of arithmetic, as you yourselves can figure out without trouble. Druggists who have studied the subject carefully assert that it is well nigh impossible to run a drug store at an expense less than 25 per cent. of the gross receipts; a $25 a day store has a daily expense of $6.25, a $30 store a daily expense of $7.50, etc. These are average stores. The reason for this is the necessarily small volume of business the average druggist is capable of doing, owing to the multiplicity of stores and the handling of drug merchandise by dealers in other lines. Over against this small volume of business must be set the unusual cost of doing business.

Rent is higher, clerks salaries are larger and illumination costs more, while loss through deterioration is greater than in any other mercantile line; at the same time, insurance, heating, porter work, interest on money invested and wear and tear are all items of expense that must be counted. Suppose the expense of doing business could be reduced to 20 per cent. of the gross receipts; even then druggists could not sell $8 preparafions for less than 83 cents, nor $8.75 goods for less than 31 cents, without actual loss. When these facts cannot be gainsaid, but are well known to every thoughtful druggist, do you think it strange that the retail druggists of the country are earnestly striving to find some way in which proprietaries can be sold without their rendering their financial condition worse rather than better? They must get $1 for dollar goods and full prices all along the line, if they are to be really better off as the result of co-operating with you in the selling of your preparations.

Whether it is possible to succeed with the plan we have been using is still a matter of conjecture. The weaknesses of that plan that have not been considered heretofore are the indiscriminate handling of proprietaries by wholesale grocers, a means whereby cutters obtain supplies of these goods, and the exrtemely injurious influence of the large mail order houses, who are supplying the consumer at the prices which the retailer has to pay the wholesaler for the goods. We have been instructed by the Executive Committee of our association to bring both of these important obstacles to your attention.

DISCRIMINATION BY PROPRIETORS IN FAVOR OF WHOLESALE GROCERS.

Realizing that the practice of cutting prices is detrimental to their own best interests because this practice materially reduces the paying power of the rank and file of their retail patrons, the great majority of the wholesale druggists throughout the country have decided to have no business dealings whatever with the aggressive price demoralizers. The effect of this decision of the jobbers has been that wholesale grocers have gone into the business of supplying to the class mentioned proprietaries which they have obtained either from the manufacturers directly or from wholesale druggists. To what extent proprietors are selling their preparations directly to wholesale grocers it is difficult to determine. The number that acknowledge doing so is not large, but many wholesale grocers are undoubtedly well supplied with proprietaries, which they say they get from the manufacturers direct. One remarkable thing about this supplying of wholesale grocers is the fact that gressive cutters, seems to be omitted in the case of wholesale druggists-namely, that the proprietors will refuse to supply their preparations to those wholesalers who supply them to aggressive cutters, seems to be omitted in the case of wholesale

grocers, upon whom, apparently, no restrictions whatever are placed. We are at a loss to know why this discrimination should be made in favor of wholesale grocers, who are supposed not to handle medicines at all, as against wholesale druggists, whom we have been accustomed to regard the sole handlers of this class of goods, except in the State of West Virginia, where there are comparatively few drug stores and where the drug business is done for the most part by general stores and miners supply camps.

Whether the wholesale grocers obtain their supplies from the proprietors directly or through wholesale druggists, the effect is the same-it enables these jobbing grocers to supply proprietaries to aggressive cutters, who are thereby put in a position to continue the demoralization which makes the handling of proprietaries so unsatisfactory to retail druggists. It might be asked why we do not educate the jobbing grocery trade to let proprietaries alone or else handle them with proper caution. In answer I would say that with 40,000 retail druggists, 450 wholesale druggists and 200 or 300 manufacturers of proprietaries and other drug merchandise to educate, we have had, and still have, our hands full. The task of educating the wholesale grocers seems especially hopeless, since there are 4,643 of them, according to Dun, and no branch of the trade seems interested in dong this educational work except the retail druggists.

CUTTERS GET THEIR SUPPLIES FROM WHOLESALE GROCERS.

As long as proprietaries are handled by wholesale grocers just that long will price demoralization continue. The restric tion which the proprietors impose upon their wholesale druggist distributors with reference to not placing their goods in the hands of cutters are wholly needless in the case of many cutters, because the latter find it easy to get these goods through wholesale grocers. Our efforts to secure the co-operation of the jobbing druggists by means of having them find out where the goods were going before filling orders and to refuse the orders if the replies to their inquiries were unsatisfactory, has been only partially satisfactory. We have endeavored to secure the use of blanks which we have furnished the drug jobber, but all to little purpose. Te be of any real value, explicit and thoroughgoing instructions should be given by the proprietors themselves to the wholesale grocers whom they supply directly (if they must sell wholesale grocers), as well as to the wholesale druggists, who make a practice of supplying wholesale grocers. Until this is done the restrictive measures which the individual proprietors have adopted with reference to the distribution of these goods may properly be characterized as "saving at the spigot and losing at the bung."

MAIL ORDER HOUSES A SERIOUS MENACE TO THE RETAIL TRADE.

As to the large mail order houses handling proprietaries, this practice is seriously interfering with the welfare of retail druggists outside of the metropolis where these houses are located, especially in the rural communities throughout the entire country, the farmers making it a practice to club together when sending in an order so as to save shipping expense.

Whether or not these mail order houses receive their supplies from the proprietors direct (as many retailers believe) is best known to the proprietors themselves. Several proprietors have protested vigorously that they do not sell, that they never have sold, their preparations directly to mail order houses. If this is true of all proprietors, then the goods are procured from wholesale druggists or wholesale grocers. In the latter event there must be a division of profits between the wholesalers and the mail order houses, otherwise the mail order houses could not afford to name, as its selling price, the prices at which the proprietors require their wholesale agents to sell the goods to the retailer.

Not only are the mail order houses supplying the consumer at the same price the retailer pays, but aggressive cutters, who are unable to obtain proprietaries elsewhere, are now beginning to draw supplies from this source, thereby setting at naught all the proprietors' efforts to keep their goods out of the hands of those who exploit them for advertising purposes, to the incalculable disadvantage of the proprietors' own interests. What will the proprietors do to stop this outlet to the cutters is the

inquiry of hundreds of druggists, who are doing their best to cooperate with the proprietors in making the latter's plans successful, but who seem to have encountered here an insurmountable obstacle.

GETTING MORE DIFFICULT TO STEM THE TIDE OF DISCONTENT. Last fall at Washington a number of proprietors courageous. ly promised to employ certain effective means which were at their disposel to minimize the demoralization in the price of their respective preparations. Whether the results thus far accomplished are a satisfactory indication to the proprietors themselves of their ability to successfully use the plans they then had in mind will, of course, be fully discussed at this meeting. It is not my purpose to say anything on that subject in this connection except this: "Unless the results accomplished through the proprietors' efforts to carry out the promises made at Washington are highly encouraging, it is going to be an extremely difficult task to prevent the retailers from refusing to continue longer the co-operation they have heretofore given the proprietors in the distribution of the proprietors' goods." This suggestion is made in none other than the kindliest spirit; it is prompted by the desire to stimulate you to still greater efforts on behalf of our common welfare; but, my fellow delegates and I would be faithless to the duty we have taken upon ourselves of truly representing the sentiment of the retailers of the country if we did not warn you that unless the satisfactory conditions which you promised at Washington would surely follow your labors during the year are not realized in good measure, the desire long held in check, to break away from the proprietors entirely will make itself felt during the coming fall from one end of the country to the other. An earnest effort will be made by those most prominent in the councils of the National Association of Retail Druggists to stem the tide of impatience, discontent and malevolence which is sure to follow the announcement that the proprietors have all but failed in their efforts to accomplish the task which they assumed at the time of our Washington convention. We can promise nothing more than to reason with our people and endeavor to convince them that the proprietors are, whatever dissatisfied and disgruntled retailers insist to the contrary, the sincere friends of the retail trade.

THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE GLYCEROPHOSPHATE PREPARATIONS.1

BY MELVIN W. BAMFORD.

At this time, when preparations of the salts of glycerophosphoric acid are attracting considerable attention, it might be of advantage to make an effort to secure some degree of uniformity in the strength and nomenclature of these preparations. Something should certainly be done in this direction, because otherwise there appears to be danger that there will be the same confusion with preparations of glycerophosphates as has always existed with preparations of the hypophosphites. With this latter class it has never been possible for a physican to know what would be used in his prescription for compound syrup of hypophosphites, nor for a pharmacist to know just what a physician might mean when he wrote compound syrup of hypophosphites. Under this title we have any number of preparations, ranging from one containing only the salts of calcium, sodium and potassium, to one containing iron, manganese, strychnine and quinine, in addition to the first three mentioned.

For a parallel case with the glycerophosphates we find, on referring to the price lists of two of the largest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in the country, that one lists a preparation containing the salts of calcium, sodium, potassium and iron as compound elixir of glycerophosphates, and the other manufacturer under exactly the same title lists a preparation containing calcium, sodium, iron, manganese, quinine and strychnine. For some reason, which is not altogether apparent, these preparations of the glycerophosphates are only from a half to a third as strong as the preparations of the hypophosphites. The difference in the price of the salts probably has some influence 1 American Journal of Pharmacy, June, 1904.

on this, the cost of the glycerophosphates being about three times as high as the cost of the hypophosphites.

Pharmaceutically and medicinally there seems to be no reason why the glycerophosphate preparations should not be made as concentrated as those of the hypophosphites. This is especially apparent when it is considered that Dr. Robin, to whose work these salts in large degree owe their popularity, used a more concentrated solution and in relatively larger doses than is provided for by most of the preparations now on the market. The syrup of Dr. Robin's, which was his favorite formula, contains approximately 65 grammes of glycerophosphates in 1,000 grammes of syrup, while the U.S.P. syrup of hypophosphites contains 75 grammes in 1,000 Cc., which would make them very nearly equal in total salt content.

Considering that these preparations of the glycerophosphates are nearly all made up with a hydro-alcoholic base, and are used largely in nervous disorders, and that their use in some cases is continued for months, it would seem very desirable to administer them in small doses, rather than large doses; in other words, to make the preparations more concentrated.

In view of these conditions, the writer has prepared a set of resolutions for your consideration, to be discussed and amended if deemed advisable, which it is hoped will prevent an increase in this confusion, and possibly aid in remedying existing conditions.

RESOLUTION.

Whereas, There seems to be danger that the preparations of the glycerophosphates are getting into the same state of confusion, as to strength and nomenclature, as the preparations of the hypophosphites;

Whereas, There is no apparent reason why the nomenclature and strength of the preparations of the glycerophosphates should not conform with those of the hypophosphites in the United States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary; therefore be it

Resolved, That the assembled members of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy use their influence toward that end, and do hereby indorse the strength and nomenclature given in the following list of those preparations, which in each case correspond with the preparations of the hypophosphites in the United States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary:

Elixir glycerophosphatum, elixir of glycerophosphates, 1,000 Cc., to represent: