ESTABLISHMENT OF STANDARDS.
Although the Health Organization does not and cannot finance pure research, an important part of its work consists in facilitating the application of discoveries already made. One of the greatest needs in medicine is the standardization of the many sera employed in the inoculations which are so prominent a feature of modern medical practice. At present a doctor is often in doubt as to the potency of the product he is using, since the units for measuring a serum vary in different countries. The Georz' Speyer Haus at Frankfurt, where Ehrlich first discovered salvarsan, used to guard the purity of the output of that drug, but during the War other countries had to manufacture salvarsan in large quantities ; they • developed their own methods of biological control, so that different standards and tests grew up in different countries. Now, thanks to the Health Organization of the League, the safe and efficient standard of the Ehrlich laboratories at Frankfurt has obtained international acceptance. Similarly, the standard anti-diphtheria serum is deposited in Copenhagen, pituitary extract in Washington, insulin in London. The Health Organization is now studying the question of vitamines in cod-liver oil, to which we have already alluded, as well as the regulation of vermifuges such as malefern and oil of chenopodium.
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