THE PHYSICIAN AND THE PHARMACOPEIA.

Abstract

It looks as though we were to have a reaction in the medical profession from the use of proprietary remedies and polysyllabic compounds to the employment of the simple but officinal drugs and compounds of the United States Pharmacopeia. It can not be denied that too many physicians are unfamiliar with that valuable work. Created by the medical and pharmaceutical professions, it has always been recognized by the pharmacist as a reliable and official guide, but to the physician it has been too often an unknown work and one seldom found on his book-shelves. Wilbert,¹in a timely article, lays some of the blame for this unfortunate condition to the enormous increase in proprietary medicines, which have become, he says, an unmitigated nuisance. He notes with satisfaction, however, the return on the part of the ablest medical men to the use of the simpler but more efficient and safer