THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
43 
C or r ernfr . 
THE NEW PHARMACOPCEIA. 
To the Editor of the Australasian Journal of Pharmacy. 
Sir,— As the British Pharmacopoeia of 1885 is now some six months old, and I 
dare say many of our medical men are anxious to test its value, would it not ho 
wise to inaugurate a movement whereby an initiatory date might be fixed on and 
preparations be ready of those articles which are to supersede the last B.P. I 
would also suggest that the prescriber, in cases of altered or new compounds, 
should add the letters “B.P., 1885,” when the dispenser would not then be in 
doubt as to where to find his formula. 
The additions are large, and some very complex and doubtful, especially, I 
believe, vin. ipecac. (I quote from a synopsis issued in the C. and D. Diary.) 
However, surely there is choice enough now, and our medicos will not be 
reduced to prescribing “ patents ” and “ foreign proprietories.” 
Trusting some action to prevent the confusion that is likely to arise will be 
taken — I remain, sir, yours, &c., 
Gr. F. CHAMBERLIN. 
Prahran, 15th January, 1886. 
THE BRITISH PHARMACOPCEIA. 
Sir,— -The editors of the British Pharmacopoeia, desiring that the work should 
maintain that practical character which it largely derives from the fact that, as 
regards its chief preparations, it is a book made by pharmacists for pharmacists, 
will recommend that extract of opium, so long as it contains 2 per cent, of 
morphine, need not be made from powdered opium, and that citrate of iron and 
quinine must yield not 16 but 15 per cent, of alkaloid. They will suggest, 
in short, that the words “ in powder ” be omitted from page 164, line 16, 
and that on page 176, line 35, the word eight be substituted by seven and a 
half 
JOHN ATTFIELD. 
[M e publish this letter as printed in the Pharmaceutical Journal of 28th 
November, but there is evidently a typographical error with regard to the 
percentage of morphine in extract of opium— the 2 per cent, should be 20— 
for if opium is to be of the standard of 9J to 10* of alkaloid, and as opium 
yields 50 per cent, of extract, the extract must or ought to contain 20 per cent, 
of morphine. — Ed. J.P.~\ 
BIRTH. 
Gamble.— On the 25th December (Christmas Day), at Darriville, Prahran, the wife of Henry 
Gamble of a son. 
DEATH. 
Lotherington.— On the 24th December, at 16 Napier-street, Fitzroy, Sarah, the beloved wife 
of J. K. Lotherington. 
