PREFACE. The literature reviewed in this, the seventh bulletin of the present series of Digest of Comments on the official standards, includes material that is of unusual interest, both from the point of view of the authors and from that of the users of the Pharmacopoeia and the National Formulary. Not the least interesting of the many happenings herein reflected is the preliminary announcement regarding the scope of these two now officially recognized books of standards. The lists of the articles to be dropped from and added to the Pharmacopoeia and to the National Formulary, as reported in the current medical and pharmaceutical journals, have been included for ready reference, and present a satisfactory and comprehensive reflection of the probable scope and content of the U. S. P. IX and the N. F. IV. The German Pharmacopoeia, published in 1910, has been the subject of a number of more or less comprehensive reviews and has, in some directions at least, been criticized rather severely. Where this comment and criticism apply directly to the nature of, or to the articles described in, the U. S. P. or the N. F., an effort has been made to reflect it in a practical way in the following pages, so as to make the data directly available in the revision of these two books. Some indication of the recognized importance of the German Pharmacopoeia as a standard for foreign pharmacopoeias, particularly for our own U. S. P. and N. F., is evidenced by the fact that, of the 671 titles included in that book, there are less than 100 that are not represented in either the present or the forthcoming edition of the U. S. P. or the N. F., and that probably no other pharmacopoeia includes so few titles that are not also included in one or more of the other national pharmacopoeias. The statement has been made (Hyg. Lab. Bull. 75, p. 114) that, apart from the recently added new synthetic remedies, the Ph. Germ. V. contains less than a dozen titles that are not also included in other foreign pharmacopoeias. In addition to this it is generally recognized that the German Pharmacopoeia is more widely used and more frequently consulted than is any one of the other national standards, and that for many years it has been looked to as the prototype of books of this nature. In Germany, as well as in our own country, some dissatisfaction has been evidenced in connection with the scope and content of the official standard for drugs and medicines, and critics have advanced many and various reasons for including in the pharmacopoeia definitions for all widely used medicines, and, on the other hand, for (9) |