ENGLISH WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 
407 
ful attempt to organize a Chemists’ Association in Birmingham, has, I am 
informed, been misconstrued by some persons, who have concluded that there 
is little prospect of successful organization amongst chemists in provincial 
towns, if in such places as Birmingham they have failed in the attempt to do 
so. This idea will be corrected by the explanation that the effort made here 
was entirely novel in its character, and that our views only partially embraced 
the usual objects of Pharmaceutical bodies. They comprised commercial, 
social, as well as scientific objects, and the success of the association so to be 
formed was made dependent upon a wide-spread support and pecuniary aid. 
The prospect of support which our canvass developed was not sufficient to 
induce us to proceed with the proposal in that form. And though we are 
discouraged in any further attempt to organize the Chemists of the neigh¬ 
bourhood at present, we should sincerely regret that our want of success 
should discourage our brethren elsewhere in the promotion of associations 
more purely Pharmaceutical. 
Yours respectfully, 
Birmingham , November 26, 1865. Geokge Dymond. 
ENGLISH PHARMACEUTICAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 
PROM A ERENCH POINT OE VIEW. 
Professor Guibourt, the learned Secretary of the Superior School of Pharmacy 
of Paris, has presented to the notice of pharmaceutists some observations on the 
medicinal weights of Europe as compared with metrical weights, these observa¬ 
tions forming the substance of a discourse, inaugurating the session of 1865-6. 
The Professor devotes a considerable space to a revision of the systems prevalent 
in this country, and points out their anomalies and inconsistencies with no little 
acumen. As the entire address is too lengthy to transfer to our pages, we 
subjoin a few extracts which we think interesting and instructive. 
After a review of the weights and measures which figured in the earlier phar¬ 
macopoeias of this country, the author observes : 
From what precedes, we find that from the year 1826 to the year 1836, there 
existed in England three systems of weights, to which chemists added the wine- 
pint or octariu-s , these four systems giving rise to 
an ounce avoirdupois . . . 
an ounce troy. 
a fluid ounce ..... 
a dram avoirdupois . . . 
an apothecary’s dram . . 
a fluid dram. 
weighing 28*35 grammes. 
„ 3M0 
55 
„ 29-57 
55 
1 -77 
55 ‘ * 
55 
„ 3-89 
55 
„ 3-70 
5* 
lias tms contusion Deen reuieuieut uy uu mcauo. 
sicians of London having brought out a new pharmacopoeia, an Order in Council of 
William IV. notifies to all Apothecaries and others whose business it is to compound 
medicines, that they may only do so after the manner prescribed in the said work 
and conformably to the weights and. measures therein appointed. 
In this work, the weights adopted are those called Apothecaries’; as to mea¬ 
sures the College substituted for the gallon and wine-pint previously used, the im¬ 
perial o-allon and imperial pint prescribed by the Act of George IV. But as this 
pint contained fths of an avoirdupois pound, instead of dividing it into 16 ounces, 
as the wine-pint and the pound avoirdupois, they divided it into 20 ounces, so as. to 
render the fluid ounce equal to the ounce avoirdupois. The final result of this.modifi¬ 
cation was to substitute for a fluid ounce of 2T57 grammes, one of 28-87 grammes; 
for a fluid dram of 3-70 grammes, one of 3-54 grammes, and so forth. But tne 
