THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
7 
THE NEW PHARMACOPEIA. 
A Paper read at a meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australasia on 10th 
December, 1885, by C. R. Blackett, President of the Pharmacy Board of 
Victoria , etc. 
The long expected new edition of the British Pharmacopoeia has at last been 
published. As the alterations and additions claim the careful attention of 
pharmacists, I thought that a paper dealing with this important matter would be 
the means of assisting the members of our Pharmaceutical Society, many of 
whom are too busy to find time for critical examination and comparison. It will 
probably be some time before all the merits and demerits of this our new 
Pharmaceutical Directory will be given to the public. It is now twenty years 
since we had a new edition of the British Pharmacopoeia, and many of you 
will remember that the first issue was found to bo so full of errors that a second 
edition was published in 1867. A small supplement was given to the public, and 
called “additions" to the Pharamcopceia, in 1874. As it was then, so I think it 
is now, apparent that a great many of the errors which are manifest might have 
been avoided if a larger number of able and thoroughly practical pharmacists 
had been engaged upon the preparation of this work; for although in the preface 
the British Medical Council — composed of eminent and most learned men — do not 
fail to acknowledge their obligations to pharmacists, and inform us that Professors 
Redwood, Attfield, and Bentley acted as editors, it would have been much better 
if the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, in conjunction 
with the Scotch and Irish, had also been associated with the Medical Council. 
In the preparation of the French Codex and the United States Pharmacopoeias 
this union of forces is the practice. However, the book is before us, and it is 
of no use to say more upon this subject. We can only hope that, when the next 
edition is undertaken, a new departure will be made. Taken as a whole, this 
Pharmacopoeia gives evidence of careful work, and is a great improvement upon 
former ones. It would seem that a decennial publication would be better, as is 
the case in America. In the early period of official Pharmacopoeias the publica- 
tion was much more frequent. The first Pharmacopoeia in England was issued 
in 1618, and another in 1622, then as follows : — 1627, 1632, 1639, 1650, 1651 
1677, 1678, 1682, 1699, 1720, 1721, 1722, 1724, 1731, 1736, 1745, 1746, 1747,’ 1748,’ 
1757, 1762, 1763, 1771, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1809, 1815, 1824, 1836, 1851. B.P. 1864,’ 
186/, 1885. First century, 10 editions ; second century, 18. 
The publication of “ Squires’ Companion,” and other extra Pharmacopoeias, of 
course, . to a great extent, obviates the necessity for more frequent publication. 
There is one advantage which may be also urged, that more time is thus given 
to test the real and permanent value of new medicines, and in the present 
day> when our journals teem with new fads of all kinds, is worthy of our 
consideration! In the new Pharmacopoeia there are about 100 pages more than 
m the last, and it is evident that the compilers acted very properly upon 
the principle of only adding those new medicines upon which some decided 
conclusions had been arrived at, although, in all probability, some of the new 
remedies will ultimately, as therapeutic knowledge advances, be, with many 
o the. old ones, relegated to obscurity. In examining this work it will be 
convenient to first of all notice a few changes of a minor but still somewhat 
important character, and which are alluded to in the preface. The old 
chemical notation, which, with the new, was previously adopted, is now 
discarded as obsolete. Some change has been made in the chemical nomen- 
clature to reconcile the names with those employed by modern scientific 
chemists. In this I think I can trace the hand of Professor Attfield, and it 
