While it is the chief function of the Council to investigate and report on proprietary medicinal preparations, its work has broadened so that the Council’s work may now be characterized as a propaganda for the rational use of drugs. Thus, its Committee on Therapeutic Research encourages the investigation of questions concerning the actions of drugs. These investigations are brought together in the “Annual Reports of the Therapeutic Research Committee.” The Council also has a committee on medical teaching which has issued the publication “Useful Drugs,” a concise, but thorough and up-to-date, discussion of the more important drugs. In addition, the Council appointed a committee to prepare an “Epitome of the U. S. Pharmacopeia and National Formulary,” in which are presented those portions of the United States Pharmacopeia and the National Formulary that are of interest to physicians and in which is given a concise statement of the therapeutic usefulness of such drugs and preparations. OFFICIAL RULES OF THE COUNCIL ON PHARMACY AND CHEMISTRY [May 1, 1921] Introduction The following rules have been adopted by the Council primarily with the object of protecting the medical profession and the public against fraud, undesirable secrecy and objectionable advertising in connection with proprietary medicinal articles. NEW AND NONOFFICIAL REMEDIES.--The book New and Nonofficial Remedies contains a description of proprietary articles which have been accepted as conforming to the rules of the Council; and of such simple nonproprietary and nonofficial substances as seem of sufficient importance to warrant their inclusion. MIXTURES.--For admission to N. N. R., proprietary pharmaceutical mixtures must comply with the rules; and, to determine such compliance, they will be investigated by the Council. The Council, however, endorses the principle that prescriptions should be written on the basis of the therapeutic effects of the individual ingredients. For this reason, it includes in this book only those mixtures that present some real advantage. There is also an appendix in which are included those proprietary articles which, so far as known to the Council, comply with the rules, but which do not possess sufficient originality to be admitted to the body of the book. Rules Governing the Admission of Proprietary Articles to the Book New and Nonofficial Remedies DEFINITION OF PROPRIETARY ARTICLES.--The term “proprietary article,” in this place, shall mean any chemical, drug or similar preparation used in the treatment of diseases, if such article is protected against free competition, as to name, product, composition or process of manufacture, by secrecy, patent, copyright, or by any other means.