410 WHAT SHOULD A PHARMACOPOEIA CONTAIN? 
o-vrurn corrosivum sublimatum.” I do not think it comes'necessarily within the 
province of a pharmacopoeia to teach chemistry, to decide between rival theories, 
or to be in advance of the age. _ „ . q. , 
If “ emplastrum ” be retained to signify a spread plaster ready for immediate 
use I certainly would coin a word “ plastmn,” “ plaatrum,” or (already m vogue) 
“plasma,” for an article yet more unlike an “ emplastrum, so understood, than 
“ nilula ’’ (massa) is to a pill. 4 . , . . . 
Let “ linimentum ” always signify a preparation to be rubbed on or into, to 
bear if needful, the caution “not to be swallowed.” . 
I would cashier “vina” altogether, making it m some cases optional to em¬ 
ploy a wine, provided a preservative proportion of alcohol be added, then to be 
called “ vinum ” but giving no formulae. The main business of a pharma¬ 
copoeia being, as I conceive, to consolidate and give permanence to some portion 
of the perpetually moving and sometimes shifting and unstable mass of science 
of the timefit can but select,—rarely invent,—and should never interfere in the 
proper province of the cook, confectioner, or sick-nurse, beyond supplying them, 
where their practice trenches on pharmacy, with definite standards for strength 
and efficiency. I quite agree with those gentlemen who advocate a standard 
form for medicines in popular demand, against which no other objection can be 
brought than that they are not perhaps the most elegant, or absolutely required, 
such°as syr. rhei, syr. croci, syr. violse, ess. zingib., etc., and I would even add 
formula; for avowed substitutes for chlorodyne, black draught, Godfrey s cordial, 
u Bucco cusso,” “ chlorum,” u iodum,” “ quinia,” “ aconitia, are changes 
purely for change’ sake, and for the worse, possessing not one tittle ol advantage, 
not even that of euphony. Pray let us have the old names back again, and the 
text of new P. B. in Latin, says 
1 ours respectfully, 
Tiios. Lowe. 
20, Ranelagh Street, Liverpool, 
December 12th, 1865. 
WHAT SHOULD A PII ABM A C 0 P (E1A CONTAIN? 
TO THE EDITORS OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Gentlemen —After carefully reading “ Country Druggist’s ” letter in your 
last Journal, I cannot pass it by without answering it and giving my own view 
of the P. B. in reference to Ins remarks. I quite agree with him that m its 
present form “it is neither one thing nor the other,” but I think it would be 
an utter impossibility to give in any pharmacopoeia forms for all the prepa¬ 
rations a druggist is obliged to keep, as many of them which we have m con¬ 
stant use are from private formula, such as-pulv. Jacob, ver., hq. bismuthi 
(Schacht), chlorodyne (C. Brown), nepenthe (Ferris and Co.), hq. opii&ed. 
(Battley), and numerous others ; also the syrups of iron and quinine combined 
with the phosphates, which are not proprietary, but would be quite out of place m 
an officinal list, although they are in constant use m large; Dispensing establish¬ 
ments. Of the omissions he complains of tr. quassias, an Edinburgh preparation, 
of which I think I may say it is almost quite obsolete, and rarely if ever prescribed, 
the infusion having taken its place ; tinct. rhei, also P. E., for the same reason is 
omitted, and the more useful tr. rhei co., being an amalgamation of the L. and 
D substituted; tinct. guaiaci, not often prescribed, the ammomated tincture 
Wine quite superseded it; tinct. iodi certainly was very useful as a pigment, 
and would have been better if it had been included ; as to syr. croci, lie says, 
“ you find it oftener in prescriptions than any other syrup, except syr. aurantn. 
