14 MEMOIR OF DANIEL HANBURY. 



"To most of your remarks on the subject of an Universal 

 Pharmacopoeia I cordially assent. 

 Universal " The idea strikes me as visionary, inconsiderate, unpractical. 

 Consider how such a work might be made, and that it is to 

 be equally suitable for Munich and Philadelphia, for Lyons and 

 Liverpool. As it would be plainly impossible to get medical 

 men and the public to abandon the Galenical formulae they have 

 been accustomed to, the Universal Pharmacopoeia must contain 

 a selection at least of those of all countries, and so become a 

 very voluminous book. Or it must abandon formulae altogether, 

 and include only the simpler substances, such as carbonate of 

 soda, corrosive sublimate, iodide of potassium, castor oil, and 

 the like. In either case such a book would be practically 

 useless. 



"But there are so many reasons why an Universal Phar- 

 macopoeia cannot be, that it is difficult to select the most 

 cogent. 



" Pharmacopoeias, as you say, do not happen to exist. They 

 are formed to meet certain clearly defined requirements, and 

 must differ according to the habits of the people who are going 

 to use them, the drugs WHICH A COUNTRY PRODUCES, the climate, 

 &c. The Indian Pharmacopoeia, for instance, which is now 

 being drawn up, is designed to afford to Europeans in India and 

 to the many natives now being educated in the Government 

 colleges, convenient formulae for prescribing (inter alia) various 

 drugs commonly found in INDIA. 



" How could the idea of an Universal Pharmacopoeia be 

 brought to bear in such a case as this ? 



" A decimal system of weights and measures would obviously 

 be applicable in all countries ; but the Latin language is scarcely 

 so expansive, though I have always deprecated it being aban- 

 doned in the British Pharmacopoeia. 



" You must not consider these hasty lines as either a ' notice ' 

 or a ' set paper/ though you can of course use them in whatever 

 way you think proper." (March 26, 1867.) 



It has been already stated that at the evening meet- 

 ings of the Society he would sit a silent and apparently 



