146 Notices reipectirig New Books. 



latiou of tlieir constituent parts ; so that the salt which was at 

 first named carbonate of ammonia is now named, as it really is, 

 a suljcarbonate : thirdly, to the ititroduction of new articles, 

 which have been sparingly adopted: fourthly, to the restoration 

 of some which had stood in the Pharmacoptpia of 1787 and been 

 omitted: and lastly, in a very few omissions from the last edition. 

 Althougl) these alterations have been made after a mature and 

 impartial delil)eratiGn, there ])robal)ly will he manv persons to 

 whose ideas they may be neither sufficient nor satisfactory, and 

 who will have sufficient confidence in their own opinion to hold 

 it as matter of faith, that no other can be right or deserve to be 

 adopted. 



" A Pharmacopceiais in its very nature ephemeral, and requires 

 ceitain changes after intervals of no very long duration; nor 

 should there exist in a well-educated profession, such as that of 

 medicine in all its branches ought to be, any difficulty in receiving 

 and adopting the alterations which are thought necessary. It 

 seems not imjjrobable init that circumstaufcs will again demand 

 such a revision at no distant date. Parliament are now em- 

 ployed in the consideration of the standard weights and measures 

 of the kingdom ; and if those alterations v.hich are expected 

 therein shall be established by law, it will be for the college to 

 consider whether they will claim any peculiar exem])tion for 

 the compounder of medicines, or will not rather promote and 

 assist in the general adoption of one uniform standard, to which 

 there can be no other objcctiori than the ideal difficulty of its 

 first introduction. Whenever too that period fhall arrive, I most 

 sincerely hope that an increase of intercourse and of mutual re- 

 spect and good-will between the constituted authorities in medi- 

 cine in the different parts of the British empire will have laid a 

 foundation for the establishment of one national Pharmacopoeia, 

 which I am daily more and more convinced will be a measure of 

 the utmost importance to the public good, and remove the evils 

 which exist in the shops from the incorporation of the three. 



*' After thus speaking of the original work of the college, it is 

 necessary for me to add a kw words respecting the translation, 

 which in the first instance cost me no small time and trouble, 

 and which I have in the present edition endeavoured to correct 

 and improve, measuring however my notions of the necessity of 

 either, not by the abuse of others, but by my own judgement. 

 I will repress as much as I can the impulse which I feel to en- 

 large upon this subject, and will in this respect accede to the 

 judgement of my friends. 



*' I could, in undertaking the translation originally, look to no 

 praise beyond that of having collected together useful information 

 upon an important subject, and of having endeavoured to render 



it 



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