THE ANALYST. 87 THE DRUG-ADULT~ATIOIV WAR IN MABSACHUSETTS. THE Massachusetts State Board of Health should be proud of its achievements in enforc- ing the Food and Drug Adulteration Law, especially since this enforcement has resulted in showing the rascally nature of the opposition to it, and the dishonesty of the prime movers ia this opposition. Their latest attempt has been the sending out a forged circular, elsewhere printed, to coiintry druggists and proprietary-medicine makers, filled with untruthful statements, in which is a copy of a bill that they had prepared and introduced €or the sole purpose of forcing the patent-medicine interest to join the adul- terators and make common cause against the State Board of Health, This Bill was introduced without the knowledge of the Board of Health, and it is in no way respon- sible for it.As to the statement in the circular, ‘( that the Food and Drug Adulteration Law was recommended by some parties in the interest of the Pharmacopoaia, and was gotten up by graduates of the College of Pharmacy,” &c., it is only necessary to remind our readers that the Massachusetts Adulteration Law is practically the aame as that passed in New York and New Jersey, and that these were copied from thedraft of an act sub- mitted by the Special Committee of Award in the competition instituted by the National Board of Trade and conducted by the Sanitary Engineer. The committee which drafted the Bill was appointed by tho National Board of Trade, and the Bill received the endorsement of that body a8 well as of the Boards of Trade of various cities, Boston included.Moreover, the commercial interests of the country were represented on that committee by Mr, Alpheus H. Eardy, a Boston merchant, Z’he circular adds that (( the Pharmacopceia is gimply a commentary or appendix to the United States Dispensatory,” It is hardly hecessary to say the Pharmacopmia has nothing to do with foodand drink, but is the standard for: the strength and purity of medicines, and is adopted as such by the medical and pharmaceutical professions gene- rally throughout the country. Indeed, it is the product.ion of a convention which meets decennially in Washington and appoints a large and representative Committee of Revision, to which committee is entrusted the labour of revising and publishing the Pharmacopoeia .The convention and its Committee of Revision represent both the regular medical and pharmaceutical professions of the country. The Phaimacopia thus issued is rtclmow- ledged to be the only official atandard for the strength and quality of all the medicines which it contains, and this claim is universally recognised by the Supreme Courts of all the States in which its authority has been questioned.88 THE ANALYST. Tie dispensatories, of which $here are three, are merely commentaries, two of them being based upon the Pharmacopmia. They are published for the profit of their authors, and are neither legally nor morally the authoritative standards by which pharmacists can be bound. E’ortunately, these Dispensatories have been written by able inen, and are often useful in explaining minutely the processes and requirements of the Pharmacopia. The statement made in this circular, that laudanum prepared by the formula given in the U.S.Dispensatory will not meet pharmacopceial requirements, is absolutely false. On page 1,466 of the last (15th edition) of the U.S. Dispensatory is given the formula of the U. 8. Pharmacopoeia, 1880, wrbntim. I f honestly followed, witb:opium of the quality prescribed by the Pharmacopceia, no pharmacist need fail to obtain a strictly standard laudanum. Any falling-short on the part of manufacturers is due either to carelessness, ignorance, or intentional dishonesty. The Boston manufacturers, who have so long sold deficient preparations and who have been coiivicted under this law, can hardly plead igno- rance, will probably not plead carelessness, and the inference is just that a desire for gain has led them to sell preparations known to fall short of accepted standards.The just and wholesome law now enforced in Nassachusetts is not oppressive; it makes no requirements which coiiscientious manufacturers cannot meet. It does punish adulteration and misrepresentation, and for this reason, and no other, it is antagonised by those manufacturers whose evil practices have been detected. The law aims to protect the health and the purses of those who must buy food and drugs upoii faith ; thus far much good has been accomplished, and the repeal or crippling of the law could not but prove a public calamity. The 8pring;tieZd Re~zcblicm, Bosto?, Ti*nceZZer and Boston Acksrtise,; we notice, have been doing gcod work in exposing the fraudulent conduct of those who are fighting the State Board, and they deserve well of the people and honest dealers in Massachusetts, because they may lose a little avdertising by their course, and are therefore doing the right thing in apparent opposition to their own immediate pecuniary intereata.