SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 9 
Your Petitioners are more immediately interested in this question as it regards Phar¬ 
macy, in which, as well as commerce, an assimilation of the Weights and Measures of 
all nations would tend greatly to the convenience of Pharmaceutists and the safety of the 
public. 
Your Petitioners are assured that a very few years would suffice to familiarize both 
Prescribers and Dispensers with the new Weights and Measures, and that the easy mul¬ 
tiplication or division of them by the Decimal System, universally applied, would afford 
such facilities of computation as to recommend it strongly to their adoption ; and they 
are strengthened in this opinion by the invariable practice of English and all other ana¬ 
lytical chemists already to state the results of their investigations in decimals. 
On all these grounds, therefore, your Petitioners would humbly pray your Honourable 
House to adopt the system now proposed, w'ith such provisions as may be necessary per¬ 
fectly to distinguish the new Weights and Measures by name from those already in use 
in England ; and, with a view to prevent accidents, would suggest the propriety of requir¬ 
ing prescribers to designate the Weights and Measures intended in their prescription in 
words at full lenyth. 
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. 
Mr. Morson seconded the motion. 
The President said he should be happy to hear any remarks the members 
present might have to make on the subject before putting the question. He re¬ 
gretted that there were so few present, but no doubt there were some who 
would wish to address the meeting. 
Mr. Andrews considered the small attendance was an indication that the 
members generally w 7 ere favourable to the proposed change. He had spoken to 
several members, as well as to others engaged in the trade, and he found that 
very little objection existed to the measure. Most of those to whom he had 
spoken appeared to understand the subject and to be prepared for the change, 
some considering that it "would be a great boon. They ought not to be discou¬ 
raged at the smallness of the meeting, but rather to look upon it as indicating 
that the members were satisfied to leave the subject in the hands of the Council. 
If there had been any desire to oppose the measure, they might depend upon it 
the attendance would have been much more numerous. 
The President said that, although the number attending the meeting was 
small, yet a far greater number had communicated their opinions in writing. 
The Council had received communications from many parts of the country, in¬ 
cluding Exeter, Bristol, Brighton, Southampton, Plymouth, Leeds, Lincoln, 
No.tingham, Sheffield, Wakefield, etc., and at most of these places the opinion 
of the members appeared to be favourable to the proposed measure for the intro¬ 
duction of the metrical system. Lie thought it might be well for the Secretary 
to read some of these communications. 
The Secretary read the following notices of meetings and of proceedings 
which had taken place in the country :— 
A meeting of the Bristol Pharmaceutical Chemists w r as held at the Philosophical In¬ 
stitution on Monday, June 8, 18G3, to take into consideration the merits of the new Bill 
for Decimalizing the existing System of Weights and Measures. 
Mr. R. W. Giles having been elected Chairman, proceeded to give a brief explanation 
of the probable bearing the new Bill would have on the interests of the trade generally, 
remarking especially on the confused state of our present system of weights and measures. 
After considerable discussion as to the merits and demerits of the new Bill, 
Mr. Schaciit proposed, and Mr. CoorER seconded, the following resolution, which was 
carried unanimously:— 
“ That this meeting acknowledges the necessity of a revision of the National Weights 
and Measures, and is of opinion that the French system is the most philosophical in 
principle, whether as regards the unity upon which it is based, or the decimal system 
upon which it is carried out; and considers that it will be advisable in remodell ng the 
British Weights and Measures to assimilate them to the French system, by which means 
it may be anticipated that a universal European system will be ultimately adopted. 
