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pleasantly located laboratories, hoping for something t o happen. This plan of reward for meritorious research comes now as a further bestowal of honor upon those fellowship holders who would offer original contributions to scimce. Throughout my discussion you will find this plan-the plan of incentive-ever adds t o the good things t h a t are and detracts from the bad t h a t persist. The system certainly offers possibilities far beyond what I have pictured. I see in this plan no adverse turn. It should accomplish what universities have long desired. It should instill in the young men t h a t desire for research which teaching alone is slow t o impart. It should open t o industrial scientists the possibility of further study in special fields under the direction ol some prominent university man. Through this advance in the study of pure and applied chemistry, the entire chemical activities of America will march forward in steady progress. In substantiation of my selection of the three most interested parties, I scarcely need explain the interests which representative universities will ever take in problems of research; technical schools and institutes of research naturally fall into the same group. Industriai organizations already realize the importancs of scientific advance as directly stimulating their activities and instilling new spirit into their investigations. In a far broader sense and with correspondingly greater responsibility do I view SQCIETY in the advancethe interests of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL ment of research in America. Having grown with prodigious strides into the greatest society of its kind in the world, is it not fitting t h a t we launch some project t h a t will return t o port laden with scientific production-the most valued treasures in this world of progress? TQ this end, I earnestly hope our several Boards of Editors will consider my proposal in its several aspects -more poignantly from the standpoint of increased duty in judicial capacity. IF our Directors and members of the Council will then approve the expenditures of money t o this purpose, I assure you the industries will gladly espouse a cause so heartily endorsed by these several groups of scientific men. Many universities, I believe, will aid in every way possible a step t h a t will make for the enhancement of all those lesser positions now SO poorly filled. Any reward of honor naturally will come slowfly, but I believe i t will come surely. The universities should lead in scientific thought and endeavor. The difficulties in chemical a r t should best find their solution in university circles. Thus the universities may be dependent upon t h e industries for the revelation of reactions so little understood, and again the industries should ever be dependent upon universities for leadership both in scientific development and in the broadest intellectual development of the young college graduates. Both university and industry must benefit through mutual progress, and as thus interdependent may they eve.r be of greatest assistance the one t o the other. THE RELATION OF THE CHEMIST TO THE UNITED STATES PHARMACOPOEIAL By Charles H. LaWall CHAIRMAN, R E V I S I O N COMMtPTEE,
u. 9. P H A R M A C O P O E I A
The United States Pharmacopoeia this year celebrated i t s centenary, the first issue of the work having been pubiished in 1820. I t is the second oldest national Pharmacopoeia in the world, the only older one being the French Codex, as the corresponding work is called in France. It was originated by physicians, and the statement of the reasons for its beginning made in the preface of the original 1820edition is essentially true to-day, as will be seen by the following quotation: It is t h e object of a Pharmacopoeia to select from among substances which possess medicinal power, the utility of which is Presented at the April Meeting of the PhlladeIphla Section of the American Chemical S k e w .
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most fully established and best understood, and t o form from them preparations and compositions in which their powers may be exerted t o the greatest advantage. It should likewise distinguish those articles by convenient and definite names, such as may prevent trouble or uncertainty in the intercourse of physicians and apothecaries.
It was planned a t the beginning to revise it every ten years, and this has continued up t o t h e present time. In the 1830 edition the help of apothecaries was acknowledged, and in 1840 the pharmacists were requested officially t o aid in the revision of the work. When the first Pharmacopoeia was issued in 1820, there were no separate schools of chemistry or pharmacy and few chemical manufacturers. Most pharmacists were chemists and some of them like Scheele, Vauquelin, Pelletier, Caventou, Serturner, Derosne, and others, had made discoveries of moment. The earlier editions of the Pharmacopoeia, therefore, contained a large number of methods for preparing chemical substances now manufactured only on a large scale and never a t present prepared in the small way for commercial purposes. Among these may be mentioned: Citric acid-from lemon juice Ether (then called sulfuric ether)-from alcohol and sulfuric acid Water of ammonia-from ammonium chloride, lime, and water Ammonium carbonate-from ammonium chloride and calcium carbonate Silver nitrate-from silver, nitric acid, and water. Bismuth subnitrate-from bismuth, nitric acid and water Mercuric chloride (called 0xymuriate)-from ‘mercury, sulfuric acid, and sodium chloride Mercurous chloride-from mercuric chloride and mercury Sodium bicarbonate-from sodium carbonate and carbon dioxide. Zinc oxide-from metallic zinc by oxidation in a red-hot crucible Processes for manufacturing morphine and quinine were also included in some of the early editions.
These will indicate that the pharmacist of those early days had t o possess chemical knowledge and manipulative technique of no mean order. There was little or no attempt t o standardize substances except in such a crude way as is shown under hydrochloric acid, then called muriatic acid, in which it is stated t h a t “a fluid ounce should dissolve 2 2 0 grains of carbonate ol lime.” The usefulness of pharmacists upon the Revision Committee of the Pharmacopoeia was so apparent t h a t by 1880 they had begun t o prsdominate, a condition which has continued down to the present time. The United States Pharmacopoeia of 1880 may be said to be a turning point in its history, for by this time manufacturers supplying chemicals of all kinds were common enough t o enable some of the processes for manufacturing chemicals to be dropped and t o require more thorough consideration of scientific standardization. The change then begun has developed until a t t h e present time the Pharmacopoeia is largely a book containing the approved nomenclature, descriptions, and standards of substances which are used in medicine and the processes are limited to those mainly for galenical preparations, i. e., the liquid preparations of vegetable drugs, such as fluidextracts, tinctures, etc., and also for the simpler chemical solutions. The personnel of the Committee of Revision has likewise changed-originally composed of physicians only, later of pharmacists and physicians, the committee of fifty who revised t h e tenth edition (ninth revision) in 1910, which is official until the work of the convention meeting in May 1920 is completed, included physicians, pharmacists, chemists, biologists, pharmacognocists, and other workers in specialized lines. Inasmuch as nearly one-half of the 782 official substances may be classified as chemical substances, there is a comparatively large group of chemists on the present Committee of Revision. I believe t h a t over 20 per cent of the fifty members are members of the AMERICAN CHEMICALSOCIETY and several of these have been prominently identified with that organization for years. The United States Pharmacopoeia is not a work of interest solely t o physicians and pharmacists. In the Federal Food and Drugs Act and in the corresponding laws of many states, its standards ‘are recognized as having legal authority.
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1920
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R T
The business management of the Pharmacopoeia is vested in a Board of Trustees of seven members who, with the Committee ef Revision of fifty members, are elected decennially from t h e delegates who assemble in Washington on the second Tuesday of May in the years whose figure ends in a cipher. These delegates constitute a convention in whom t h e ownership of the
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Pharmacopoeia is vested and which is now a chartered body. The delegates mainly come from medica1 and pharmaceutical colleges and societies, but t h e AMERICANCHEMICALSOCIETY is one of the organizations regularly authorized t o participate, as are also the various departments of the United States Government whose work bears any relevancy to medicine or pharmacy.
WILLARD GIBBS MEDAL AWARD
Brief mention was made in the June issue of THISJOURNAL of t h e presentation of the Willard Gibbs Medal to Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell, recently appointed Director of the U. S.Bureau of Mines. I t gives us pleasure to reproduce below the admirable address of the recipient of the medal, and Dr. Whitney’s remarks in p r e s e n t a t i o n . - [ E ~ i ~ ]~ ~ . PRESENTATION ADDRESS By W. R. Whitney Dr. Cottrell, in presenting to you this medal on behalf of the CHEMICAL SOCIETY,in memory Chicago Section of the AMERICAN of the great Gibbs, I am not going to recite a list of your wellknown achievements. This is not merely because these achievements are so well known, but because I prefer t o preach a brief sermon. I choose t o call attention to your process rather than your product. I believe that the 7uay you have done things is even more important than the actual things themselves. Our country might get along without the particular products of yaur effort, but it could not get along without men personifying your procedure. We are not so much interested in recovery of fumes, the abatement of the smoke nuisance, in the saving of silver, zinc, or sulfuric acid, in the production of helium, or any other of the definite undertakings which are attributed to you, though these are in themselves very valuable, but rather we exalt that human qziality which insures advanced undertakings of public welfare and interest. You are one of those who intelligently decline to proceed along entirely old paths but map out and push along new ones. You are one who, no matter how wisely you may act, must withstand many rebuffs and disappointments, because, in blazing new trails, countless obstructions must be encountered and surmounted. Herein you have always retained your momentum and your good nature. All our improved ways of living, our broadened views, our greater activities, and our increased pleasures are due t o new and difficult steps, often seemingly absurd when judged by us who are impelled by habit only. I n tilling new ground and in opening unbeaten paths you have needed your well-advanced scientific education for keeping high your coefficient of success; a splendid personal quality of open-heartedness and a carefully controlled physical constitution. All of these you have clearly and unselfishly devoted to the public good. You have not been satisfied to accept things as they were, and we chemists highly appreciate ideals and those new ideas which, while not a t first acceptable to the average man, can be made so by human effort. Your support of one universal language may be looked a t as only a few years too early, but it is a type of the thing for the realization of which people will have to depend on someone like yourself, if it is ever to be realized. Your work in the West and your radical undertaking in the East, in establishing the Research Corporation, together constitute a trail blazer which calls attention to the possibilities of cooperative research and to the position ol our Government in relation to ideas and inventions of its employees. You have started something which may well grow far beyond your anticipation. You have set an, example not only in accepting the responsibility of such public work, but your patient persistence in carrying out your own plans with
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support which only your well-known integrity, industry, and enthusiasm could insure, forms a new high plane of activity for the emulation of the American chemist. We are glad that you have been added to that group of chiefs of the Bureau of Mines, Holmes and Manning, which our Government has so fortunately possessed. We will be willing t o forgive in you many possible errors or mistaken undertakings in the future, if your ideals and your will t o be right and the intuition to be constructively dissatisfied with imperfect existing conditions, persist as they have hitherto existed. MEDAL ADDRESS INTERRATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RELATIONS By F. G. Cottrell The experiences of the war have served to illustrate as never before the importance of the position held by the scientist both pure and applied, not only t o our daily life a t home, but also in international affairs, and during the war perhaps no branch of science carried a more important load or gave a better general account of itself than did chemistry in all its various branches. The details of chemical war work have filled a good part of our journals for so long t h a t t o dwell on them here would be bringing coals t o Newcastle; but what the chemist’s part is to be in the reconstruction period upon which the world is entering still lies before us and has a most legitimate and insistent call 011 our serious attention. The war certainly furnished a great stimulus to discovery and invention, but from the standpoint of technical achievement it bids fair to have served only as the prelude to a vaster industrial development of truly international character which may reasonably be expected t o follow in its wake. The stress and strain of the period we have passed through has awakened the imagination of the rising generation t o a world consciousness as nothing less far-reaching could possibly have done, and we in this count r y are destined perhaps even more than those in Europe itself t o feel the full effect of this swelling pulse, because to the European nations international contacts have long been matters of course and from a physical aspect almost as natural as intercourse among the states of our own Union. But this was a new experience to the majority of the 4,000,000 young Americans who just a t this most impressionable age have been thrown into daily physical and mental contact with their fellows of foreign countries, as also the conditions and traditions of home and economic life in these countries. They have brought back with them a mental leaven which, though it may take some time to fully develop, and will undoubtedly require careful guarding against the wild yeasts of Bolshevism and other extraneous growths, should eventuaUy make itself clearly felt as a tremendous power for good and for the broadening of the concepts of our national life both human and economic, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS FOSTERED Chemists in this country, as a class, have recognized and fostered international relations probably as much, if not more, than have most of the technical and engineering professions. This is perhaps due in no small part to the very close and cordial cooperation which has existed from the first between pure and applied chemistry in this country, for it is usually easier to get
