The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1914-07-09
Weekly Chats With the Consumers
By the Tennessee Food and Drugs Department
More About the Sanitary Food Law
BY Lucius BIOwn, state Food and Drug Commissioned


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drug trade jointly agreed to estab-
lish standards for these drugs, to en-
brace the better known drugs, and
agreed to publish these standards in
an official book, describing this
''pharmacopOecia" of the United
States, the book itself bearing this
title. Similar publications and
agreements had previously been made
by most Of the European countries
and pharmacOpOecias established for
those countries. The first volume of
the pharmacOpocias was issued there
fore at about that time, and it has
been revised at intervals of ten years
ever since. The supervision of this
work is under committee appointed
by the whole body of the trade as rep
resented in a United States Phar-
macopOeial Convention" to which rep
resentatives of the drug trade, of the
medical profession. and of allied inter-
ests, such as medical colleges, food
and drugs inspections, ETC., are dele
gated by their respective organiza-
tons.
The first edition of this pharma-
copoeia appeared in the year 1880,
and while the method Of appointing
delegates was somewhat different
from that just described the princi-
pals were essentially the same. The
was made by a convention meeting
in 1900. This convention met again
in19lO, so that another revision of
the pharmacopoeia is now in progress
and is soon to be issued. This will
be the ninth revision. 1t contains
several thousand remedies of various
sorts and includes the more common
and valuable drugs, those which have
been tried by time and experience.
OF course in each revision a number
OF additions are made to the phar-
macopoeia, and a numer of remedies
are dropped. The National formul-
airy is publication intended to sup
cement the list of the United States
Pharmacopoeia, and is published by
the American Pharmaceutical Asso-
citation, a body composed of most of
the leading druggists of the United
States. 1t contains remedies which.
for one reason and another, (either
because the committee of revision of
the pharmacopoeia did not think that
they were sufficiently broadly used
or were out of date. etc. are not in
cluded in the Pharmacopoeia.
Obviously during the intervals be-
tween the periods of revision of the
Pharmacopoeia and the National For
mulary. progress goes on in medicine
and remedies are discovered which
have value and the use of which can
not be put off until the revision of
these beeks. Information as to these
remedies is therefore published as
widely as possible and, as is the case
OF the remedies of the Pharmacopoeia
and Formulary, their composition is
well-known and their effects are well
enough known to justify their being
included in doctors practice.
1t is to be noted that all these rene
dies are non-secret composition, and
that anybody who has the capacity
to make them can do so. The third
class of remedies are sold under spe-
cific names and differ from those Just
described in being secret. In other
words. some man believes that he has
a remedy or combination of remedies
good for certain diseases and he
thinks that If he gets up name for
those things he can sell them by the
proper advertising. These are known
as patent medicines, or proprietary
and I will treat them at
some length in a later Weekly Chat"
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