THE ALADDIN'S LAMP OF MODERN SCIENCE.

The most romantic tale of modern science deals with the marvelous variety of useful and beautiful products which have been wrested during the last half-century from the noxious coal tar which was formerly so troublesome a by-product that it was the despair of every manufacturer of illuminating and heating gas. It was exactly fifty years ago that this Aladdin's lamp concealed in coal tar was disclosed, and it is now proposed to have a semicentennial anniversary of the discovery.

To Dr. W. H. Perkins, whose preparation of mauve from coal tar, just half a century ago, began a long list of chemical triumphs which has by no means yet been completed, belongs the chief credit for the establishment of the coal-tar industry; and it is proposed to have Dr. Perkins the guest of honor at a banquet to be held in commemoration of his discovery on the sixth of October. Plans for the anniversary are being made by the Chemists' Club of New York City. At the banquet a symposium will be presented on the various aspects of the subject, and a distinguished audience will be present. It is proposed also to establish a library of works in chemistry to be known as the Perkins Library and to cost $50,000; there are to be two sets of books, one for local use, and the other for circulation throughout the country. In the third place $5000 will be set aside for the presentation of Perkins' medals in the future as awards for important discoveries in chemical science. Finally, a valuable token or emblem of some appropriate sort will be given Dr. Perkins at the banquet. In England a similar commemoration was celebrated late in July, while Germany, France, and Switzerland have likewise fallen in line with the general movement.

Elsewhere in this issue of the BULLETIN we are presenting a paper which tells the magical story of coal tar in picturesque and dramatic language. It is almost unthinkable that so foul-smelling and apparently worthless a substance should conceal

such a marvelous storehouse of useful and beautiful agents of a thousand kinds. A myriad of aniline dyes of every conceivable color and shade are. now made from coal tar. Carbolic acid, is obtained from it, and pharmacists do not need to be told of what invaluable use this agent is to humanity. From carbolic acid is prepared picric acid, and this is in turn employed in the manufacture of the terrible explosives of our day. From carbolic acid is

also prepared phenacetine; from aniline acetanilide is made; and these are but two of a host of "synthetic" remedies which of late years have been added to our materia medica. Vanillin is produced from coal tar. So is oil of mirbane and many other flavoring agents; while from the oil of mirbane are prepared many synthetic perfumes of exquisite Saccharin, a product 550 times sweeter than sugar, is obtained from the same wonderful storehouse. From coal tar the photographer draws many of his developing agents, among them metol, amidol, and eikonogen.

odor.

And so one might go on and on, adding to the enumeration of discoveries which have already been made. Every year the list grows longer and longer. New perfumes or flavoring agents, new dyes or drugs, new explosives or antiseptics, are constantly being produced from this black, unpromising, foul-smelling substance. Can anything be

more marvelous?

TWO GREAT

MEETINGS.

THE MONTH.

The American Pharmaceutical Association is opening its annual meeting in Indianapolis just as this issue of the BULLETIN is being sent to the press. The early reports seem to indicate a large attendance and a most successful convention. A good deal of interest centers in the elaborate scheme of educational reform and unification which is scheduled for discussion by the Section on Education and Legislation on the one hand, and on the other by the joint conference which will be held for the first time between the Conference of Pharmaceutical Faculties

and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. While this great meeting is being held in Indianapolis, preparations are meanwhile being made for the other important retailers' convention of the year-that of the N. A. R. D. in Atlanta. Headquarters will be at the Hotel Kimball, and the meeting will convene on Monday, October 1. Special trains will be run from Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, while from New York will be taken the chartered boat trip for which Organizer De Shetley has been making arrangements for some time. The City of Columbia will leave New York at 3 P.M. on Thursday, September 27, arriving in Savannah early Sunday morning. Atlanta will be reached about 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon by train.

THE "DRUG TRUST" SUIT.

While the 'N. A. R. D. is thus preparing to hold the largest and the greatest convention in its history, the so-called "drug trust" case, aimed at the very existence of the organization, is moving along at the snail's pace which is characteristic of such. litigation. From time to time the various defendants in the suit have filed their demurrers, declaring the allegations of the government to be false. When these are all in it will devolve upon the courts to pass upon them. If they are sustained, the whole case of the government will apparently fall to the ground. If they are overruled, then other bills will probably be filed, and other actions taken, that in one way and another will prolong the developments of the case. No one need expect that we shall see an end of the "drug trust" suit very soon. In the meantime it would seem that the N. A. R. D. is

continuing to advance its direct-contract movement, realizing that it stands here upon legal ground of the most unassailable character. It is to be observed that the Norman Lichty Manufacturing Co., makers of Krause's Headache Capsules and other goods, have recently adopted the contract plan.

ANTI-NARCOTIC REFORM.

*

An anti-narcotic law enacted in North Carolina last year was little better than a farce, and was an excellent illustration of the oft-repeated principle that druggists should secure such legislation themselves if they desire it to be of the proper character. At the recent meeting of the State association it was decided to draft a new bill and seek its enactment at the next session of the legislature. In San Francisco an ordinance has just been passed restricting the sale of certain narcotics, and we should judge from the meager abstracts of the measure which have been sent to us that the A. Ph. A. model anti-narcotic law was used as the basis of the enactment. Another ordinance has also been passed in San Francisco which is somewhat supplementary in nature to the anti-narcotic enactment: it provides that any product or preparation not recognized in the U. S. P. or the N. F., if it contains more than 10 per cent by volume of alcohol, or if it contains cocaine, codeine, alpha or beta eucaine, formaldehyde, morphine, heroin, or any of their salts or compounds, shall state the exact content of such ingredients on the label and package in letters not less than one-twentieth the size of the largest dimension of the container. The latter ordinance is

akin in nature to the labeling clause of the recently enacted congressional pure food and drug law, and represents one of the reforms which patent-medicine critics have been strenuously seeking to obtain during the last year.

THE PURE FOOD
AND DRUG LAW.

One of the topics of chief interest and concern just now is the congressional pure food and drug law, which goes into effect next January. There is one feature of this act which makes the measure one of great importance to the drug trade-the labeling clause providing that every medicament must bear a statement on the label of the "quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or contained therein." Many retailers have apparently any derivative or preparation of any such substance misinterpreted the bearing which this clause of the law, and which the law generally, had upon them: they have assumed on the one hand that their own ready-made specialties were involved, and on the other that, in case they were caught next January with any proprietary articles or pharmaceuticals in their stock not containing the necessary statements on the label, such articles would be illegal and unsalable. These are mistakes. In answering the questions of a couple of correspondents in our department of "Queries" elsewhere in this issue, we have striven to make it clear that the congressional act affects only interstate commerce on the one hand, and on the other the affairs of the District of Columbia and of the territories. Products made and sold within the borders of any State, or sent into the State before the law goes into effect, are entirely outside the jurisdiction of the law.

ent situation. Most of their business is of an interstate nature, and the law pinches them at every point. The act is already causing them considerable concern, even where, as in most instances, they are sincerely desirous of living up to its requirements. The reason for this is that they will not know exactly what is required of them until the governmental officers have interpreted the law by a series of definite rulings. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, for instance, are anxious to revise their labels at once in order that, when the

law goes into effect on the first of next January, jobbers and others will have as few goods as possible which do not conform to the law. But their good intentions will manifestly be frustrated if, after they have conformed to the law as they understand it, the governmental officials should decide, for example, that the content of alcohol should be stated in specific phraseology, and the printing done in a specified style and size of type. A governmental board has been appointed to frame regulations, and hearings will be held in New York beginning September 17. Dr. H. W. Wiley, chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, is chairman of the board.

THE PURE FOOD LAW AND ALCOHOL.

One other trouble that will be experienced in the practical application of the congressional pure food and drug law resides in the difficulty of stating the exact content of alcohol. This is by no means the simple matter that it looks to be at first blush. It is a very easy thing to say what strength of alcoholic menstruum is used in the manufacture of a particular preparation, but it is a very different thing to say what strength of alcohol resides in the finished product. This point was brought out very interestingly in a paper contributed to the recent meeting of the Ohio Pharmaceutical Association by Prof. Joseph Feil. Professor Feil severely

He

criticized some of the conclusions which had been contained the year before in the report of the Committee on Adulteration and Sophistication. showed that while the Pharmacopoeia directs fluidextract of cascara sagrada to be made with 40-percent alcohol by volume, the finished product contains only 29.57 per cent under the most favorable circumstances a percentage which the committee had declared to be so low as to call for condemnation!

A TROUBLESOME QUESTION.

Professor Feil went on to say that there were three factors to account for this diminution of alcoholic strength in fluidextract of cascara. In the first place, there was 6.82 per cent of moisture in the drug; next, 11.40 per cent of the fluidextract was represented by extractive; and, finally, a slight amount of alcohol was always lost by evaporation during the moistening of the drug and in the process of passing it through the sieve and packing it. We might add also to Professor Feil's statements that in this matter, as in the operation of alkaloidal

assaying, for instance, different workers will attain slightly different results. The percentage of moisture in different lots of drug will also vary; and altogether we have anything but a constant and unvarying set of factors by which to determine the exact quantity of alcohol in a finished pharmaceutical. Will Dr. Wiley's board permit sufficient latitude in its rulings on this point? This is only one of a number of practical problems which the congressional law has brought forward, and which show the necessity of a broad spirit of justice in the interpretation and enforcement of an act which at first reading seems clear and definite enough.

THE ASSOCIATIONS AND

HIGHER EDUCATION.

In the last two issues of the BULLETIN we have been interested in stating the attitude taken by the various State pharmaceutical associations, at their annual meetings this year, toward the very important question of prerequisite legislation and higher educational requirements generally in pharmacy. We observe now that the Michigan Pharmaceutical Association, meeting last month in Jackson, passed a resolution instructing the Committee on Legislation to draft an amendment to the pharmacy law providing for the establishment of the graduation requirement, this amendment to be presented at the meeting next year for consideration and action. At the North Dakota meeting, too, President Bateman recommended in his address that "we have a higher educational qualification to be eligible for registration." As our readers know, the Wisconsin Board. of Pharmacy established the graduation requirement on its own initiative a year or so ago; and at the recent meeting of the association of that State the issue was quite hotly discussed. The debate was one of the chief features of the meeting, and while the supporters of compulsory graduation apparently won the day, they had to fight for their cause.

imposed. As we write we have before us a report from Cleveland, Ohio, announcing that a wholesale house in that city has been swamped with requests to find drug clerks for their customers who are nowhere to be picked up. A jobbing house in Denver has appealed for clerks to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. So it is in other sections of the country. Critics of graduation laws seem to forget that such measures do not affect the standing of clerks as such at all, and impose the graduation requirement upon proprietors only. Prerequisite legislation, if it exercises any effect on the number of drug clerks, is just as likely to work one way as another: by putting a premium upon education and brains, it will induce young men of the better and more ambitious sort to enter the calling, while it may, for contrary reasons, cause a few boys of a less desirable type to be excluded.

FEATURES OF STATE MEETINGS.

Passing on to speak of other features of the recent State meetings, we observe that at the Michigan convention enough money was subscribed to bring up the Prescott scholarship fund to $260. It is hoped to raise $1000 in all, so that with the interest an annual scholarship of $40 or $50 may be established in the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Michigan, where Dr. Prescott did his life work. The association passed a resolution that it would complete the fund by contributing $100 from the treasury when $900 had been subscribed. At the meeting of the Iowa association considerable attention was paid to the competition of the patentmedicine peddlers, and after much discussion it was voted to ask the legislature to double the licenses of $100 now imposed upon these peddlers annually. It was estimated that the average loss to each drug store on account of such competition amounted to $660. A unique feature in the East was the entertainment of the Rhode Island association by the druggists of Virginia at Narragansett Pier. This was in return for the courtesy extended at the same place last year by the Rhode Islanders. A banquet was held at which the members of both associations were in attendance, and the sentiments of fraternity and friendship were most interesting and gracious.

evoked so much hostility that it was voted down, but a vigorous and convincing speech by Charles T. Heller, a well-known member of the State Board of Pharmacy, brought about a reconsideration of the vote and a decision to favor the proposed law. The measure will be based upon the Chicago ordinance, which prohibits the sale of carbolic acid in solutions greater than five per cent in strength except upon physicians' prescriptions, and except when mixed with equal quantities of glycerin and alcohol. The obvious purpose of such a law is to prevent the use of carbolic acid by persons of suicidal intent. Ordinances of the kind are in effect in Chicago, New York, St. Paul, and other cities, and recently Buffalo has been added to the list. The merits of the

proposition were discussed at considerable length in a BULLETIN editorial two or three months ago.

SULPHUR MONOPOLIZED.

Recent trade advices indicate that what practically amounts to a monopoly of the sulphur trade in the United States has recently been effected. It seems that the two sources of supply are the American sulphur and the Sicilian product. The Union Sulphur Co., owning large wells in Louisiana, have enjoyed almost a monopoly of the native product. They have now effected an arrangement by means of which they will be the exclusive agents in the United States of the Sicilian sulphur. A law recently adopted by the Italian government has resulted in the monopolization of the Sicilian sulphur wells, and this has in turn made it possible for the Union Sulphur Co. to obtain exclusive American rights. Altogether it would seem as if the American sulphur trade would in the future be centralized in one house. Whether prices will be raised remains to be seen.

THE BRITISH

CONFERENCE.

The British Pharmaceutical Conference, like our own American Pharmaceutical Association, seems to be exhibiting an upward growth-although not in quite so marked a degree. At the recent annual meeting, held in Birmingham, something like 200 new members were added to the rolls, and although the Conference was shown to be a little over £100 "to the bad," this deficit was much smaller than it had been in previous years. As in the United States, so in Great Britain, it is difficult to get pharmacists to give sufficient support to an organization of high scientific and professional character. On this side of the ocean, however, we

should feel gratified that the A. Ph. A. has had, and is having, a much more prosperous career, financially speaking, than the British Pharmaceutical Conference. The address of President W. A. H. Naylor was a lengthy and admirable treatise on drug valuation. The president-elect, Mr. Thomas Tyrer, is a prominent chemist, and is well known personally to many in America by virtue of his visit to these shores a couple of years ago in connection with the meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry. The Conference will hold its meeting next year in Manchester.

THE ELIXIR OF CALISAYA SENSATION.

It proved to be something of a tempest in a teapot a month or two ago when the druggists of New York were alarmed over the action of the revenue authorities in going after them for the dispensing of N. F. elixir of calisaya at their soda

fountains. It was at first feared that a number of preparations might come under the same ruling, but it has since been pretty well shown that this is exceedingly unlikely. S. L. Hilton, chairman of the Legislative Committee of the N. A. R. D., had a conference last month with the officials of the Treasury Department at Washington, and afterwards assured national headquarters that neither manufacturers nor retailers would suffer serious inconvenience by the application of the Bureau's ruling, particularly since ample notice would be given in every case before resort were had to prosecution. In New York, meanwhile, it was found that relatively few druggists were dispensing such products at their fountain, and the feeling was quite freely expressed at a meeting of the M. A. R. D. that such practices were "off color" anyway.

THE MAINE PHARMACISTS.

*

A LIQUOR LAW FOR The pharmacists of Maine have begun an agitation to secure a law giving them the privilege of selling liquor on physicians' prescriptions. Maine is a prohibition State, and, if we mistake not, the pharmacist who sells a pint of whisky in a case of emergency, and even upon the prescription of a physician, violates the law and may be severely punished. It is to correct this anomaly that the State association seeks the enactment of a suitable law. The pharmacists have made it so clear that their purpose is a righteous one, and that they have no desire to be given the privilege of selling liquor indiscriminately,

that they have succeeded in getting a considerable newspaper support of their propaganda. At the last session of the legislature a desirable bill was introduced, and was even advocated by some of the temperance organizations of the State, but the prejudice was so strong against liquor selling of any kind or in any degree that the bill was killed. It remains to be seen whether better success will be attained with the next legislature.

WILL THEY BE GOOD?

*

Every once in a while the druggists of Chicago are brought face to face with the danger of having imposed upon them a liquor ordinance increasing their license anywhere from $100 to $500 a year. Why? Because a few of them will insist upon abusing the privilege granted to them under the druggist's license, selling liquor indiscriminately, and arousing the hostility of saloon men and liquor reformers alike. During the last year two inimical ordinances have been defeated as the result of vigorous efforts on the part of the C. R. D. A. On the last occasion a pledge was given that the pharmacists of the city would hereafter live up to the terms of the druggist's license in letter and in spirit. An honest compliance with this pledge is the price of future immunity from hostile ordinances. It would appear, however, from a recent warning in the Chicago edition of "N. A. R. D. Notes," that the pledge is not everywhere and always being respected as it should be.

POLITICAL PHARMACISTS.

Several men prominent in the drug trade have recently been proposed for political honors of various kinds. M. N. Kline, of the Smith, Kline & French Co., well-known jobbers in Philadelphia, is being talked of as a candidate for mayor in his city. Frederick F. Ingram, head of the manufacturing pharmaceutical house of F. F. Ingram & Co., has announced himself as a Democratic candidate for Congress from the Detroit district. Mr. Ingram has been conspicuous for years in the discussion of public affairs, and has talked and written much on economic and sociologic questions. Finally, ex-President James H. Beal, of the A. Ph. A., is being urged by his friends to enter the lists as a candidate for the food and drug commissionership of Ohio-a position for which his chemical training and his judicial temperament admirably equip him. Unfortunately, however, Professor Beal's health has not been good of