The time is ripe for a national prescription formulary. It is utterly impossible for the practicing physician to have enough information to select the drugs he uses in the treatment of his patients wisely. The great pressures exerted on him by the drug industry through detail men, medical journal advertising, and direct mail articles, by newspaper, radio, and television publicity, and finally by patients who read or hear of such advertising often force the physician into using drugs about which he does not have full information. Furthermore, it is frequently impossible for him to get unbiased or sufficiently comprehensive data concerning a drug in order to know whether it is an effective agent or whether it is potentially harmful. At present, there is no available authoritative compendium to which he can turn for help. He is often at a loss to know just how to answer patients' questions or how to resist effectively the many pressures brought to bear on him. This leads to poor medical practice and results in serious consequences to both the patient and the physician. Many authorities in the field of drug therapy have felt that one answer to this situation is an authoritative, annually renewed compendium of truly worthwhile drugs selected by experts on which the physician could rely to guide him in his prescription needs.