Abstract
INSTEAD of the customary science paper, the January meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society's winter session, held on January 16, was devoted to the topical subject of the drug supply in war-time. The speaker, Mr. Arthur Mortimer, whose world survey of the medicinal products used in Great Britain —a survey prepared for use in the event of an emergency—has proved a helpful piece of work to Government departments, referred among other matters to drugs which are now scarce because their usual sources are no longer available, and to other sources of supply. It has been necessary, he said, to consider how far potassium salts can be replaced by sodium salts; the home supply of potash is very small and Great Britain has been mainly dependent upon Central Europe for its supplies, although since the War of 1914–18 arrangements have been made by British manufacturers to develop the Dead Sea deposits. It is obvious, he said, that for many uses sodium bromide can be as effective as potassium bromide. Regarding vegetable drugs he mentioned gentian, squill, liquorice, senega, cassia, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium and colchicum, among others, which are already in short supply or may be in short supply, “though if care is used and substitutes are prescribed wherever possible, we shall have no difficulty in meeting the situation”. Referring to the manufacture in Great Britain of synthetic products which in the past were made exclusively in what are now hostile countries, he said that H.M. Government naturally expects that every British pharmacist throughout the Empire “would refuse to keep enemy trade marks warm” and would do all they could to popularize the British remedies which are now available.
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Drug Supplies in War-Time. Nature 147, 112 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147112b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147112b0