830 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 15,1&71. 
seeing- that it was the analogue of ammonia ancl not of 
ammonium. He would suggest, therefore, that the word 
morphium should ho introduced, which he thought would 
lend itself as well as morphia to prescribers, especially as 
they would be sure to omit the termination in either case. 
But this would render the names of the compounds of 
these acids with natural alkaloids consistent with the 
names of the salts of the metallic elements and compound 
radicals such as ammonium. With regard to the naming 
of these alkaloids, he observed that Professor Attfield 
had adopted the system which was probably more in 
use amongst medical men than the opposite plan, to a 
great extent used by pure chemists, viz. the termination 
ia instead of ine. He did not know that any important 
objection could he urged against these names; and if the 
terminal ia he changed to him in naming salts, it would 
entirely get rid of the difficulty with regard to that por¬ 
tion of the name representing a metallic element, or 
similarly constituted compound radical, which performed 
precisely the same functions in the different compounds. 
These appeared to him the only cases of inconsistency, and 
he was very glad to see that so slight an amount of altera¬ 
tion brought the system of pharmaceutical names so nearly 
into harmony with that of purely scientific chemistry. 
Professor Redwood said that whenever the Pharma¬ 
copoeia had been submitted to revision there had always 
been, more or less, alterations effected in the names of the 
substances described, and these changes had generally, 
although not always, been made with the view of assimi¬ 
lating them to those employed by scientific men. This 
had been the case in the last edition; the other object, and 
perhaps the more important, being to make each name 
more specific, and less liable to misconception. As such 
changes had been made on former occasions, so he had 
no doubt that whenever a new edition came out, the 
same thing would take place, and perhaps to a still 
greater extent, the foundation having been already laid 
by the introduction of the new notation, although it was 
not thought expedient then, on account of the unsettled 
state of the subject, to relinquish the old notation which 
was best understood. The old notation being- retained, 
the old names were necessarily retained likewise, though 
the introduction of the new notation paved the way for 
such a change of names on a future occasion, as Professor 
Attfield had indicated. As to the time, however, when a 
new Pharmacopoeia would be prepared it was impossible 
to say; hut the average life of an edition having been about 
ten years, it would probably he some considerable time yet 
before another was brought out. He was not quite sure, 
therefore, that it was advisable to discuss the matter so 
long beforehand, though, were a new edition in course of 
preparation, he should advocate in the majority of cases 
precisely the changes proposed by Professor Attfield, 
being a change from the representation of salts of alka¬ 
lies and alkaline metals to a representation of their 
being salts of the metals themselves, thus bringing about 
a consistency and uniformity in this part of the nomen¬ 
clature with the other part which hitherto had not 
existed either in pharmacy or amongst scientific men 
themselves. This system had been adopted in labelling 
the specimens in their museum for some time ; as there 
were two notations given in the Pharmacopoeia, there 
was an old name which corresponded with the old nota¬ 
tion, and a new name precisely the same as those which 
Professor Attfield proposed. If nothing more than this 
were suggested, he should have no doubt of the prin¬ 
ciple being adopted, and should himself go with the 
author of the paper entirely, ancl even to concur in 
what had been suggested by Dr. Frankland, that the 
alkaloids, morphia, quinia, and so on, should be changed 
to the better-known and more-easily expressed names, 
morphine, strychnine, quinine and' so on. Such a 
change he thought could be made without any incon¬ 
venience or difficulty, for these were the names gene¬ 
rally used in commerce. Dr. Frankland had remarked 
that there would still be, in some cases, a want of dis¬ 
tinctness, instancing sulphate of iron, which, he said, 
represented two salts which required to be distin¬ 
guished from each other. Now in the present Phar¬ 
macopoeia both were ordered, and the names there used 
were, as he conceived, sufficiently distinct. The rule 
had been never to make a name longer than necessary 
to its being perfectly understood; therefore, the term 
sulphate of iron was applied to the ferrous sulphate or 
protosulphate, which was rather a long name, and, per¬ 
haps, a little theoretical; and the ferric sulphate was 
designated by the prefix per , without which the name 
could not be written, so that there could he no am¬ 
biguity. Whilst, however, he agreed with much that 
had fallen from Professor Attfield, and especially with 
the principles he had laid down, he could not concur in 
all his proposed changes, though the number to which 
he objected was but small. In the first place white 
arsenic was suggested in place of arsenious acid; and it 
was suggested that the term ‘ acid ’ should not be used to 
designate a body which contained no hydrogen, as such 
were not really acids according to modern views. If 
arsenious acid of pharmacy were the only body of 
the kind used, or likely to be used, in medicine, he 
did not know that there would be any great objec¬ 
tion to the change, although he preferred the older 
term as being more distinctive, for the name “white 
arsenic” might be applied to arsenic acid as well as to 
other compounds of arsenic, while arsenious acid was 
not so liable to misconception. But there were other 
bodies which stood in precisely the same category, for 
instance, chromic acid, which was used as an escharotic ; 
and if the term ‘ acid ’ must not he applied to arsenious 
acid, neither should it be applied to chromic acid. What 
then could it be called? Chromic anhydride would 
be a proper term, but he should not he prepared to 
import it into pharmacy. It was unsatisfactory, for 
even scientific chemists differed upon it, and it was un¬ 
certain how long it would maintain its position, and it 
would be very unwise, therefore, to introduce it into 
pharmacy, where, above all things, permanence was re¬ 
quired. No one could have any doubt as to what was 
meant by arsenious acid or chromic acid, and, therefore, 
although the terms might be open to a little objection 
theoretically, he thought for practical purposes they 
were the best that could be adopted at present. Excep¬ 
tion had been taken to the term bichromate of potash, 
and he only wondered that the proposed change to red 
chromate of potash had not been made before ; but con¬ 
sistency would require that a like change should be 
made in the cases of bicarbonate of soda and bicarbonate 
of potash. These names, however, were, he thought, pro¬ 
perly retained, being so well understood, although they 
were not quite satisfactory theoretically. Then, again, 
there was the term black sulphide of antimony, which 
it was proposed to substitute for the ordinary name, 
black antimony. In his opinion brevity was a very im¬ 
portant consideration and he was quite satisfied with the 
old term, which had been thoroughly understood for 
generations both in commerce and in pharmacy. Then 
came the substances subnitrate of bismuth and carbonate 
of bismuth. Professor Attfield said both these were of 
analogous composition, and that if one was called sub¬ 
nitrate, the other ought to be called subcarbonate. 
Theoretically he should be disposed to agree with this 
view, but, practically, he thought it better to leave the 
names as they stood. Tho subnitrate was in the former 
Pharmacopoeia called nitrate, hut it was necessary to 
distinguish it from the crystalline salt which was acid in 
its reaction, and the prefix sub was used for that purpose. 
With regard to the carbonate of bismuth, although un¬ 
doubtedly it was an oxycarbonate, yet, as there was no 
other carbonate of bismuth with which it could be con¬ 
fused, ho should not be in favour of introducing a longer 
name when the short one was sufficiently explicit. 
The same theoretical objection would apply to car¬ 
bonate of lead and carbonate of zinc, both of which were 
