although mail-order houses are permitted under the interstate commerce laws to sell in original packages direct to the consumer, goods in which coupons are packed. The result is that the State law has taken away the power of the retail dealer to compete with the mail order houses and soap clubs to whom he must lose a large amount of trade. Retail grocers will suffer in such cases more than any other merchants.

We do not doubt the truth of this assertion and call attention to the matter as one of the dangers to be provided for in drafting anti-premium laws. The drug trade will be well represented in the drafting of such laws and its representatives may be trusted to look after its interests in this regard.

A SUGGESTION TO LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEES.

IN another editorial in this issue we call attention to one phase of possible legislation

the coming winter and in the present editorial we wish to direct attention toward further legislation in which we are interested as druggists.

What seems to be troubling politicians of all parties is the recent wonderful popularity of the prohibition sentiment. In fact, leading politicians of both leading parties are making haste to give their aid and effort in this direction in the hope of reaping any benefit which is coming from the seeming success.

If we come to look over the country with a view to determining how far prohibition has progressed as to territory, we are surprised, perhaps, to discover that more than one-half of the United States is now "dry;" as to population, nearly one-half of our people live in so-called "dry" territory, so that at the outset of the new year it may be said we are not far away from national prohibition.

The liquor interests are trying to console themselves by the assertion that this is only a wave, which at the present time has reached its highest crest and that a reaction is about to follow.

From the history of this movement for the past two or three years, this does not seem to be correct, for instead of being a spasmodic movement, it seems to be a well centered and well grounded belief growing in the minds of the citizens of the entire country.

The liquor interests have also heretofore held that the large cities are the stronghold for their side of the controversy, but even from these large centers of population, they do not seem to be getting as much comfort as in the past.

The city of Detroit is the largest city now living under prohibition laws, but when we consider that Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Tacoma and other large towns are also included in the dry column, it seems that the support of the large cities is drawing away from the liquor element. The seeming thrift and prosperity which is being shown in dry territory is a very strong object lesson to other territory which lies. contiguous. This is strikingly illustrated in Kansas City, Kansas, which has lived under prohibition laws for several years and has been in the view of the citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, and has had the effect of winning over the Missouri city to the cause of prohibition. fact, at the last election, the state of Missouri would have been added to the dry, st if it had not been for the vote of the city of St. Louis, the center of large brewing interests.

At the last election fo states were added to the dry column; more than this, in several states already dry, the efforts of the liquor interests to secure new laws, giving them greater privile, failed in all.

It seems that the most astute politicians see the handwriting on the wall, and we may look for nation-wide prohibition in the very near future.

Now we are telling our readers of this condition, not because we wish to champion the prohibition cause or to take any part whatever in the controversy, but merely to show them what is coming, that they may be prepared. The prohibition party has already declared that the question will be put up to the voters of Ohio the coming Fall, with the strong possibility of success; it is the part of wisdom that we prepare for it. We all know how important alcohol is to professional pharmacy. Scientists have sought diligently, but without success, for a liquid that would take the place of alcohol as a solvent and preservative in pharmaceutical preparations. We should prepare to offer rules and regulations governing the use of alcohol in a territory which may be dry, in order to prevent the forming of such rules by the narrow-minded, prejudiced and incompetent. We should prepare rules and regulations that will not handicap and be an annoyance to the pharmacist.

We are, therefore, placing this situation before our readers and would recommend that the legislative committees give some thought to this matter before we are brought face to face with the conditions herein promised.

TEACHING SURGERY AND MEDICINE BY THE AID OF MOVIES.

THE popularity of the moving picture has for some time been fully demonstrated, but its value as a means of education is only just being developed. It has been used in this direction quite a little, but its combination with other kinds of photography has only been lately attempted.

At the present time the large film houses of Paris, London and New York are offering certain films for use by the medical colleges which seem to have great advantages. If the student misses some movement of the operating surgeon when performing an operation, it is lost to him forever, as the operation cannot be repeated just to accomodate a single student on a single point. A moving picture of the operation, however, can be shown a number of times and studied at leisure. It can be run at the actual speed of the operation, it can be slowed down or stopped at an interesting point for study in detail, as often and as long as the teacher may deem it necessary to fix in the student's mind the process employed.

We understand the film houses are offering very freely films of this character which are now being used. More than this, in combination with the microscope and the X-Ray apparatus, the moving picture is developed to very great results. The passage of food through the alimentary tract can be viewed with the aid of the X-Ray. The food itself, before taken being mixed with a small quantity of bismuth subnitrate, which makes it opaque to the Roentgen rays. The movement of the bones of the wrist or any other part of the body can be observed and taught. Then again the micro-kinema photography has been brought to a high state of development, so that microbes of various kinds can be shown in a picture as large as a dinner plate and the warring between the good microbes and the bad ones plainly demonstrated.

The moving picture is also useful as a means of diagnosis. The gait of a patient or his movement under various conditions can be noted and often leads to the correction of the cause of the trouble.

It may thus be seen that the moving picture is just on the point of developing a great usefulness in the service of medicine and surgery and we may look for its extensive use in the very near future.

WHAT IS A PROFESSOR?

HEN the popular magazines poke fun at the title of "professor" by showing up all the freaks who have appropriated that title to themselves, from the long-haired individual who poses as a professor of astrology and reads your future for a fat fee, to the corn doctor who advertises his professorship by the aid of the "sandwich-man," is it any wonder that our academic titles are so little respected?

We have had occasion to remark before in these columns on the little recognition accorded pharmaceutical degrees, as compared with those of the other sciences, but can we honestly put the blame on those who sneer? Conditions in the education of other sciences may be as bad or worse but that does not excuse us for tolerating wrong conditions in pharmacy with little or no effort to correct them.

Can we deny that the degrees given by one college of pharmacy do not come anywhere near matching up with those of another college?

Can we deny that the doctor's degree is given in some colleges for work which could be more honestly represented by an apprentice degree?

Can we deny that the professor's toga as often worn in our colleges of pharmacy is as incongruous as the appropriation of the title by the street vendor?

When we can find a specific and certain definition for "professor," "college," and "degree," then will we be able to reconstruct the system of pharmaceutical education from its foundation up and build such a system as will not stop at an attempt to standardize the examination questions of state boards, but will standardize the teaching force, the courses offered and the degrees conferred.

An educator of some note is quoted as saying that one-third of the public school teachers might be classed as expert, one-third as passably fair and one-third as failures, and we have often heard the statement that many a good farmer had been spoiled by trying to make a doctor of him.

In any calling we will find persons engaged who are not really fitted for that work, but who have fallen into it by chance and are able to plod along and earn a living. These in many cases are thorough and conscientious workers and examples of them are to be found in the teaching forces of technical schools all over the country.

We realize that any standardization of a teaching force must take the question of salary into account; the plodders above mentioned must be provided for because of their loyal service of perhaps many years. But the greatest drawback we can see to inaugurating a system of standards is that the initial move must come through existing organizations and those who would be competent to work out the standards will have to sit as judges upon the teaching ability of men who have long been acknowledged co-workers and in many cases are personal friends, and it would be an exceedingly unpleasant task for David to say how much salary Johnathan was entitled to receive or whether he was able to hold the job of dean, professor, associate, assistant, etc.

We would not wish to see any different spirit than one of friendly courtesy among those who have at heart the future of pharmacy as a profession and personally we would decline to act on such committee of "judgment." But for the sake of that future profession we know judgment should be taken on teachers, curricula, salaries and degrees alike.

A suggestion we would like to leave with our readers and those especially interested in the work of standardizing the profession is this: Would it not be possible to have

some state official appoint, not by law, but by request, a commission of scholarly men not interested in pharmacy, but capable of working out a set of standards from the information to be had from the various colleges. The services of such institutions as the Carnegie or Rockefeller Foundation might be used to advantage, the point being that a set of standards that would be acceptable in all respects to all concerned must represent the unbiased opinions of disinterested parties. There are enough big men in pharmacy to do this work except for the drawback of personality among those concerned, as mentioned above.

With high standards in operation the good old title of "professor" at least so far as pharmacy is concerned, would be immune from the ridicule now directed toward it.

THE ANNUAL ADMONITION.

THE

HE new leaf which the retail druggist turns over on New Year's day does not long afford him the satisfaction of contemplating labors finished and tasks put away for he must at once write on that page the important business to be looked after for another year, the neglect of which may carry heavy penalties in one form or another.

As we see it, one of the duties of a trade paper is to bring before the minds of its readers, from time to time, the important data to set down in the diary for 1917.

First we would admonish you to make a true inventory of your stock some time during the month of January. This is not only a good business system necessary for your own information, but may mean hundreds of dollars in settling with the insurance companies if you should be the unfortunate victim of fire.

We would admonish you to make accurate records of your poison sales, and record your liquor sales if that provision is required in your section. It is improvident to take any chances in these matters.

You perhaps do not need admonishing to keep your narcotic records in first-class condition, but we find a tendency among some druggists to overlook recording narcotics used for stock preparations. To be on the safe side make a record of every grain of narcotic used in any way.

We would admonish you to demand the guaranty on your invoices as to the content of products which come within the jurisdiction of the Food and Drugs Law. The law permits the use of the label bearing the old guaranty legend until May, 1918, but if new labels are used, the guaranty is omitted and your invoices should be stamped with a guaranty to protect you from prosecution in case the goods are not up to the requirements of the law.

Now is the time to subscribe to your trade journals and let your New Year resolution be to provide a place in each day's budget for their careful reading. And don't stop with the magazine section, but consult the advertising pages which are prepared expressly for you at great expense. The study of the advertising sections of your trade papers will save you many a dollar and enable you to keep your stocks up to the minute in variety and quality.

PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH

AND LITERATURE

OUR NATIONAL DRUG STANDARDS.

Inheritance is both good and bad; this is especially true of drugs. From the fathers we received many good and useful drugs, an inheritance of permanent value; but some of these old "simples" are not up to modern requirements. For some years we have been eliminating one after another, and the process of elimination has given rise to unjustified reports that nearly all drugs are worthless. And yet, in this day of drug and therapeutic nihilism, the number of newly introduced drugs and drug preparations has exceeded the number that have dropped by the wayside. An examination of the pharmacopoeias of the world will reveal the startling fact that only nineteen have been revised since 1900, and only three since 1911, five years ago—the British, the U. S., and the Norwegian. Only the Argentine standards have, of all the South American States, been revised in this century. An examination of existing pharmacopoeias shows scores of drugs hardly known in modern medicine. As an example, Cnicus Benedictus ("Cardui"), of recent notoriety, is recognized in the Belgian, Croatian, German, Japanese, Netherlands, Russian, Swedish and Swiss pharmacopoeias. By comparison, the British and U. S. pharmacopoeias, the two most recently revised, are ultra-scientific. Can one wonder at the backwardness of pharmacy? And again, is it at all remarkable that the proprietary medicine has flourished?

Truly the proprietary men have saved the situation from stagnation, and in two ways; first, by exploiting worthless drugs and thus killing them off in professional esteem; second, by bringing out new drugs of value, a thing the medical profession itself has been very slow in doing.

THREE STANDARDS.

A rather anomalous situation has resulted. The American Medical Association considers the newer proprietary preparations of such importance that it prints a new and revised edition of "New and Nonofficial Renedies" every year, thus producing the most critical and scientific drug standard in existence. It makes no claim to be a therapeutic standard, since the drugs incorporated are simply on a scientific basis and require clinical trial to demonstrate their value or lack of it. It is surprising how many of them make good and are, later, incorporated in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. The new revision is fairly crowded with drugs the fathers never heard of.

Pardon the implication; but the book, New and Nonofficial Remedies, is a standard of the drugs to be, the U. S. P. of the drugs that are, and the National Formulary of those that were. The first welcomes the coming guest, the second entertains the present visitors, and the third speeds the parting ones. So everybody ought to be happy, for one can find whatever he is looking for in these three standards. The doctor who likes to be in the forefront of modern advance, the safe and sane standpatter, and the "old fogy," can each and all pick out drugs to their liking and find perfectly first class pharmaceutical standards for all of them. The American pharmacist plays both ends from the middle, and probably he is very wise in doing so.