The American Medical Association and the United States pharmacopoeia / a reprint of the pamphlets of H.C. Wood, Alfred B. Taylor, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the National College of Pharmacy ; with a rejoinder addressed to the professions of medicine and pharmacy of the United States, by Edward R. Squibb.

E. R. Squibb

Date:: 1877

Credit: The American Medical Association and the United States pharmacopoeia / a reprint of the pamphlets of H.C. Wood, Alfred B. Taylor, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the National College of Pharmacy ; with a rejoinder addressed to the professions of medicine and pharmacy of the United States, by Edward R. Squibb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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presented herewith to be reprinto<l, in a<lvance of these remarks, as a necessary part of the liistory of this movement; an.l the princi pal objections raised in the pamphlet will now be noticed. The historical sketch with which the pamphlet begins, is not in accordance with the history given in the Introiluctions an<l Prefaces of tlie early revisions of the Piiarniacopfeia; but as it is tlie future of llic riiarmacopceia, rather than its history, that is now under con- sideration, this is not important. But the object for which the sketch is introduced is to justify the statement which concludes the sketch, namely, that from that time until now, the machinery set in motion by our forefathers has continued to run without jar, and the results have been accepted without challenge, until now a movement for change is presented by but one person. To deny the correctness of this statement would not prove it to be incorrect, while to attempt to prove it incorrect would involve a review of the later revisions of the Pharmacopceia from the current medical literature of the past fifteen years. And even after such a review to sliow the mistakes and shortcomings from published observations made upon its j)ractical application to use, it could easily be said that those were hypercriticisnis founded on ignorance. To refer to a Report on the New or Fifth Decennial Revision of The United States Pharma- copceia, made to The New York State Medical Society, published in 1873, by the writer, would not be conclusive, since that Report was made but by one person. Whether the criticisms in this report were just or not, many of them have been repeated, and aru always open to proof or disproof by trial to any who ehoose to try llieni, as mat- ters of fact and not of judgment;—and they have never been contro- verted. Finally, if this movement for ciianjre has been urged by but one person, it does not necessarily follow that none other has any fault in the present PharmacopaMa, or that the movement is un- wise or untimely ; and as the movement for change preceded tlie objections to it, it devolves upon the objector to prove the change unwise by something more than simple assertion, and the argumen- tuni ad /io)tiine»i. These points appear to be brought up merely as a preface to the pamphlet and an introduction to the discussion, but in effect they really prejudge the whole case by a constructed hypothesis of practical perfection in all past ])iiai inacopoeial work, with the voice of but one person to call in question tliis perfection, and that single voice dangerous only from some inlhience apart from the arguments used, by which The Association may be captured and carried away to its injury. This introduction to the pamphlet urges upon The

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