the; journaIv of pharmacology, xSs. 



quadrant should be the unit — a meter. Multiples and divisors of this, and 

 volumes and weights dependent upon it were provided for. The system 

 was provisionally established by law, August i, 1793, the nomencla- 

 ture nearly two years later, April 7, 1795. For seven years the survey 

 of the meridian went on, and in 1799 representatives from ten countries 

 assembled in France to settle the details from the result of the survey, and 

 fix a "definitive meter." The Metric System thus went into operation in 

 France. But the example was not quickly followed by other states. 

 About twenty years later the Netherlands appears to have been the first to 

 adopt it. In 1869, an International Commission of Weights and Measures^ 

 consisting of representatives of nineteen leading nations, reported in its- 

 favor, and many adopted it. One after another, different countries have 

 joined in, until practically all the States of Europe, except Russia and 

 England, use the system, either exclusively or very generally. The same 

 can be said of the States of South America, of our new West India posses- 

 sions, of Mexico and the States of Central America, as well as parts o 

 Asia and Africa. Germany in 1870 enacted a compulsory law [to go into- 

 effect in two years. Before the expiration of the two years everybody was 

 using the system. 



In England an Act passed in 1864 allowed the use of the meter and it.^ 

 companions if any persons choose to use them. In 1868 there was almost 

 enacted a compulsory Metric System measure, the Bill having passed the 

 second reading in the House of Commons, which usually means adoption,, 

 but it was suddenly withdrawn. In 1878 Parliament passed an Act for- 

 bidding the use of any weights or measures not the Board of Trade 

 standards, thus zVlegalizing the Metric System. This continued till 1S97 

 when another Act was passed which re-established permissive use. The 

 British Pharmacopoeia, published in 1899, gives the metric weights after 

 the Imperial, and in the next revision will give the metric first. The 

 Educational Department in Great Britain has recently made the teaching 

 of the metric system compulsory in the elementary schools. In 1895, a 

 Committee of Parliament, after an exhaustive Report, recommended its 

 exclusive use. Pres. Mendenhall recently stated that the Metric S3's- 

 tem had in five years made more progress in England than in thirty years 

 in the United States. 



Russia has lately issued a permissive law similar in purport to that of 

 England and the United States. It went into effect January i, 1900, of 

 their era. 



The Russian Ukase of 1894 directs that after a certain date the systenr. 

 shall be used by all druggists in the Empire. It has been used in the 

 medical department of the Russian army since 1896. A bill is in prepara- 

 tion by the Minister of Finance of that country for its compulsory use 

 throughout the Russian Empire in every department of trade. The bill 



