ADDENDUM. 



Extract from the Report of the Council of the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation on the Adoption of the Metric System of Weights and Measures 

 by Medical Practitioners in Dispensing and Prescribing. 



British Medical Journal Suppl. . 1911, 1 p. 205 



A. TRANSITIONAL PROCEDURE SUGGESTED FOR ADOPTION BY MEDICAL 



PRACTITIONERS. 



(5) To practitioners who have been trained according to the present 

 system, the Council recommends the adoption of transitional procedure, 

 which would enable them at once to adapt their prescriptions to the meas- 

 ures of the Metric System, and so avoid the drawbacks that would arise from 

 a divergence in practice between junior and senior practitioners, and would 

 also at once secure for senior practitioners the advantages which make 

 the general adoption of the Metric System desirable. 



(6) The difficulty before the practitioner who has been trained to think 

 in terms of grains and minims is to translate his quantities readily into 

 grams and cubic centimetres, and if absolute exactitude were necessary he 

 would require the constant use of tables of equivalents. In practice, how- 

 ever, the most common mode of administering medicines is by spoonfulls, 

 and even when these are poured carefully into a medicine glass the range 

 of variation is relatively wide and the dosage must be such as to make this 

 variation entirely safe. The Council, therefore, feels justified in recom- 

 mending to the profession, as a transitional measure the following methods 

 which are based on the actual conditions of British practice, and for the 

 suggestion of which the Council is indebted to Dr. R. C. Buist. These 

 will be found to give automatically the conversion of a dosage in grains 

 and minims into a prescription which the dispenser can measure in grams 

 and cubic centimetres with an approximate exactitude well within the 

 range of variation of spoon measures. 



Mixtures. 



(7) In the prescription of an 8 oz. mixture, of which each tablespoonful 

 is to contain 



(a) Tr. Belladonnae, m V. 

 Spt. ^Etheris, m X. 

 Vin. Ipecac., m XV. 

 Syr. Scillae, m XX. 



Inf. Senegse ad ^ oz. (i.e., m CCXL). 

 The Metric prescription for the mixture would be 



(b) Tr. Belladonnae, 5. 

 Spt. Athens, 10 

 Vin. Ipecac., 15. 

 Syr. Scillae, 20. 

 Inf. Senegse ad 240. 



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