_Nomenclature._--Were it possible to enact and enforce a law which would oblige manufacturers to sell their medicinal products under properly descriptive names and which would make it illegal for a physician to prescribe it unless he understood the meaning of such properly descriptive titles, then the Council might safely disband. In that case, physicians would discontinue the use of most proprietary preparations in favor of established drugs, and successful newcomers might each year be counted on the fingers of one hand. Such a rational nomenclature is not to be thought of, at least in our generation. Rule 8 requires that the name of an article shall not be misleading, that it shall not be therapeutically suggestive, and that established drugs shall not be disguised by fanciful titles. It recognizes the right of discoverers of new drugs to name their discoveries, and interposes no objection to arbitrary names for such products so long as such names are not misleading or do not suggest the therapeutic uses of the products. As the rule provides against the recognition of coined names for established nonproprietary drugs, so it requires that mixtures of drugs shall bear names descriptive of their composition. It would be a long step forward if physicians would recognize more fully the objections to the many proprietaries which have, as their only point of originality, a non-descriptive name for an old drug or a mixture of well known drugs. It is an encouraging sign that the Federal Trade Commission, when issuing licenses for the manufacture of synthetic drugs introduced under German patents, stipulated that all manufacturers authorized to make a given drug shall use the same name for it. _Irrational Articles._--Rule 10 provides against the recognition of an article which, because of its composition, is useless or inimical to the best interests of the public and medical profession. This rule excludes medicaments which (1) are unessential modifications of established articles, or (2) are of no therapeutic value or (3) are irrational. With regard to the recognition of mixtures or compounds containing two or more active ingredients, the Council requires that the manufacturer establish the rationality of its combination. The rule has prevented the recognition of many unnecessary so-called ethical specialties. Though a mass of testimonials was often to be had for them, these contained no evidence that the mixture was superior to its potent ingredient, or that its therapeutic effect had been determined. That there is a healthy tendency to use single drugs for their definite action and to discard combinations (be they shotgun proprietaries or “mixed” vaccines) is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that at the last revision of the U. S. Pharmacopeia a considerable number of complex antiquities were omitted from that book.