Abstract
THE address of Mr. J. Rutherford Hill, as chairman of the Pharmaceutical Conference, which met at Birmingham on July 17–21, was entitled “Public Health in relation to the Recognition, Definition, Standardisation and Controlled Supply of Medicaments”, and he makes recommendations under all these heads. Lists of recognized drugs are supplied by the national pharmacopœias of many countries; it is hoped that these will eventually be replaced by an international pharmacopœia, but this would not solve the whole problem. Medicine is advancing rapidly and pharmacopœias soon get out of date. Some authority in Great Britain should publish a list, like the American list of New and Non-Official Remedies, which would be kept constantly up to date. the British Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain have recently been forced by considerations of cost to abandon the proposal to publish such a list jointly. The Government should undertake this important public service. Proper regulations for the definition of medicines would make it impossible for the manufacturers to confuse the public, and fill up the shelves in pharmacies, by selling the same simple chemical substance under a dozen synonyms. Mr. Hill also recommends that the present arrangements for the standardization of medicines should be extended, and that their retail sale should be confined to pharmacists. This would not mean a monopoly for one class of the community, but only that those firms which sell medicines should be compelled to employ salesmen who have been properly trained.
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Public Health and the Supply of Medicaments. Nature 144, 185 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144185d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144185d0