THE CHEMISTS’ ANNUAL BALL. 
303 
‘ sulphate of potassium,’ is, in this respect, no better.” This is a candid admission of 
the imperfection of the system adopted. 
Further on he says, “It is not only impracticable, but impossible to study salts as a 
whole; binary ideas concerning them are, therefore, almost inevitably imbibed. We 
come to regard a salt as a body which splits up in one direction only ; look upon nitre, 
for instance, and all other nitrates, as containing IT 0 3 and a metal; whereas KIT0- ; 
may be split up into K IT 0 2 and O, or into K. 2 O, ITo, and 0 5 ; or may contain K. O 
and ITo 0 5 . Under these circumstances perhaps the best plan is to make a virtue of a 
necessity, and regard salts as binary bodies containing a basylous and an acidulous radical, 
but not to give the acidulous radical any very definite name unless it has been isolated 
or is well known to exist.” This reminds us of the case of a poor woman, who, having 
been in better circumstances, was reduced to the occupation of crying fish in the streets, 
but did so in a mild voice, hoping that none of her friends would hear her. 
At page 194 and 195 in describing the reaction which takes place in producing acetic 
acid from acetate of soda and sulphuric acid, after representing the change in three 
different ways, one according to the old and two according to new views and theories, 
he observes, “Which of these three equations, or, more broadly, which of the three views 
of the constitution of salts, illustrated by the equations, is correct, it is impossible to say. 
Whether it is C : H 3 0 2 , C 2 H 3 0. or C 4 G 3 which migrates from one acetic com¬ 
pound to another, whether it is S 0 4 . S O.,, SQ 3 , which migrates from one sulphuric 
compouud to another, and so on with other acidulous groupings, cannot at present be 
determined. There are strong objections to each view, and probably neither is right.” 
In this statement we entirely agree with the author, and think it presents a strong reason 
for abstaining from too hastily adopting theories, and especially systems, which are not 
yet even fully developed, and which, if applied in pharmacy, by inducing alterations in 
the names of chemical substances would be calculated to produce much inconvenience 
and possibly confusion. 
Although the science of chemistry has made great advances of late years, it cannot 
be doubted that it has yet some further modifications, and probably very great ones, to 
undergo, before it assumes for a time a character of stability, or can be represented in 
a form which will express the faith and fundamental doctrines of its chief accredited 
high-priests ; and whilst it is in its present unsettled state, it would, we think, be unwise 
to allow even the recognition of recently-established truths to affect the general practice 
in pharmacy with regard to the names of substances used in medicine. 
If it were merely a question of names, it might be easily decided that for pharmaceu¬ 
tical use the nomenclature of the Pharmacopoeia is sufficient and should be adhered to ; 
and pharmaceutists ought carefully to avoid weakening the authority of th.-Pharmacopoeia, 
not only as their legal guide in the preparation of medicines, but also as an interpreter of 
terms passing current between prescribers and dispensers of medicine. The names in the 
Pharmacopoeia, while they are retained there, should be those habitually used by phar¬ 
maceutists as well as by medical practitioners ; and other names, if they are required to 
be learnt as representing modern theoretical views, should be used only as synonyms oc¬ 
cupying a subordinate position in the pharmaceutical vocabulary. The practice adopted 
in the editorial department of this Journal accords with these views ; and although, since 
the introduction of the new notation into the Pharmacopoeia, it has become desirable 
that its theoretical as well as empirical signification should be understood, as far as may 
be, especially by pharmaceutical students, it cannot be expected that those of our readers 
who have long ago studied chemistry under another system, should go to school again 
to get up the new system, nor would it be reasonable and just, by the adoption of a new 
chemical language, to make chemical subjects unintelligible or obscure to a large pro¬ 
portion of those for whose use the Journal is intended. 
THE CHEMISTS’ ANNUAL BALL. 
The Ball held last January seems to have met with so much success as occasion of 
pleasant reunion amongst chemists and druggists and their friends, that it has been de¬ 
termined to organize a similar entertainment this season; it will take place at Willis’s 
Booms, on the 22nd of January, and, if successful, will, we are told, be continued 
annually. 
