768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the system of apothecaries' weights and measures at present in use by 

 the medical profession of the United States. 



" In all the medical and surgical works of any importance printed in 

 the English language the doses are expressed in apothecaries' weights 

 and measures. The immediate effect of compelling medical officers of 

 the army to substitute the metrical weights and measures would be, to 

 force them to make a series of arithmetical calculations every time they 

 attempt to use the prescriptions or doses laid down in any medical work 

 written in the English language. This thankless and unnecessary labor 

 would waste much precious time, and an error might cost life. More- 

 over, the strength of the various medical tinctures and solutions in use 

 in England and America has been so adjusted that the proper dose is 

 expressed in even minims, drachms, or fluid ounces. Merely to sub- 

 stitute for these simple quantities the corresponding fractional numbers 

 would be a silly waste of labor ; and in order that a proper dose might 

 be expressed in an even number of cubic centimetres, a revision of the 

 Pharmacopoeia would be necessary, and this would have to be followed 

 by a corresponding revision of all the medical books in common use 

 before the new Pharmacopoeia could be conveniently used. In my 

 opinion the best interests of sick officers and soldiers require that 

 the medical staff of the army should, in all its operations, act in the 

 most complete harmony with the medical profession of the United 

 States, and I can not do otherwise than express my belief that the 

 discordance in practice, which would be imposed by such a statute 

 as is suggested, would be fraught with the most unfortunate conse- 

 quences. 



" 2. As to the second question, while T admit that the enforced intro- 

 duction of the metric system would produce less detriment to the pub- 

 lic service if it were rendered obligatory upon the whole people than if 

 its use were simply compelled in government transactions, I must ex- 

 press the opinion that great public inconvenience would result if at the 

 present time its general use were rendered obligatory by the exercise of 

 an arbitrary act of power, I leave to others to point out the disorders 

 likely to result in the land measurements, the railroad interests, and the 

 general machinery interests of the United States, in all of which the 

 units at present employed are incommensurable with those of the metric 

 system, so that the use of long decimal fractions in the most ordinary 

 transactions would become imperatively necessary as the only road of 

 escape from still greater evils. I confine myself merely to the question 

 of the interests of the medical profession of the United States, and 

 must express the opinion that it will be time enough when they have 

 asked for it to impose upon that body a change which will put all their 

 operations out of harmony with the similar proceedings of other English- 

 speaking nations. For assuredly many of the inconveniences which 

 would be felt by government officers, if compelled to use a system of 

 weights and measures not used by the people, would be felt by the whole 



