April 15, 18/1.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
837 
oxycarbonates, but no proposition was made to alter 
them. Chloride of tin, which was ordered as a reagent, 
was proposed to be changed to stannous chloride, but 
he was not prepared to adopt that as the only case in 
which this particular kind of nomenclature should be in¬ 
troduced. With the citrate of iron and ammonium, and 
the citrate of bismuth and ammonium, he would include 
the tartrates, which Professor Attfield took great objec¬ 
tion to, proposing to substitute tartrate of Ron and 
potassium for tartarated iron. The latter name was 
adopted as being shorter and more convenient to use 
than the full name, and thus the terms tartarated an¬ 
timony and tartarated iron arose. They were not given 
as scientific names, but nevertheless they did indicate 
the composition, because both were tartarated pro¬ 
ducts. Just as chlorinated lime was lime treated with 
chlorine, so the iron and antimony were treated with 
tartar. However, he should not object to the names 
tartarated iron, etc. being changed, but not for those 
suggested. He should prefer going back to the old 
names, Avhich were familiar to all, and sufficiently ex¬ 
plicit and euphonious, viz. ammonio-citrate of iron—po- 
tassio-tartrate of iron, which names were still used in 
commerce. As for the termination in um , which made 
the name so much more of a mouthful, he was quite sure 
that neither commercial men nor pharmacists would ever 
use it. Potassio-tartrate of antimony again was the 
old name for emetic tartar; and the new preparation 
called citrate of bismuth and ammonium might, in like 
manner, be called ammonio-citrate of bismuth. Citrate of 
iron and quinia, or quinine, as it was commonly called, 
-frould then require to be altered for the sake of uni¬ 
formity. He did not like ammonio-quiniate of iron, and 
should therefore suggest ferro-citrate of quinia or qui¬ 
nine. There was only one other case he wished to refer 
to, and that was where it was suggested that the familiar 
name hydrated peroxide of Ron should be changed to 
peroxydrate of iron. He was not at all favourable to 
such a change, thinking the old names far preferable. 
Professor Odlixg said Professor Attfield had produced 
a very useful paper, and upon the whole had steered tole¬ 
rably clear of difficulties. He was happy to find that in 
most instances where he should venture to differ from 
the conclusions arrived at, he had been forestalled by his 
friend Dr. Redwood; but at the same time he could not 
agree with all the remarks of the latter. With regard 
to the propriety of discussing such a subject at the 
present time, and to the probability of a new edition of 
the Pharmacopoeia being speedily issued, he thought 
such discussions as the present were always useful, 
as they opened the way for the time when action be¬ 
came necessary, however long it might be deferred; 
and looking to the great merits and completeness of 
the present edition, he had no doubt that a long time 
would elapse before another was called for. He had 
been somewhat surprised at the delicacy which Dr. Red¬ 
wood felt about introducing the term “white arsenic,” 
but he was quite satisfied shortly afterwards on hearing 
his remark on “black antimony.” Professor Attfield, 
he thought, had shown great discretion, both in the new 
names he had proposed and in regard to the old ones 
which he thought should be discontinued. He quite 
agreed that names involving the use of abbreviated Latin 
or Greek numerals were to be avoided as far as possible, 
if not altogether, and the use, where necessary, as dis¬ 
tinctions of red and yellow, where such-like definitions 
obviously applied, was much to be recommended, as, for 
instance, green iodide and red iodide, red prussiate and 
yellow prussiate, yellow chromate and red chromate; for 
these names had at any rate the element of stability, as 
there was no reason to suppose that the various salts 
would alter their colour within the next generation or 
two. He also concurred in wdiat had been said as to the 
use of the word ‘ acid.’ It was w r ell known that this term 
had been applied for a long series of years to two distinct 
classes of compounds,—those wdiich were ordinarily 
bought and sold under that name, such as oxalic, citric 
or tartaric acids, and also to the substances which were 
considered to exist within these bodies, and to give them 
their characteristic properties. Now it was obvious that 
the same name should not be given to two totally dis¬ 
tinct substances or even be applied to bodies belonging 
to different classes. If it were the case, which he be¬ 
lieved it was, that the body called “ white arsenic ” 
belonged to an entirely different class of bodies from 
those to which the word ‘ acid ’ was now almost uni¬ 
versally restricted by chemists all over Europe and in 
America, it w r as a pity that it should not be distin¬ 
guished and called as was suggested, “ white arsenic,” 
rather than arsenious acid. Originally it would have 
been but a matter of little consequence to which class 
the word ‘ acid ’ should be applied, but, inasmuch as it 
was now applied by general consent to salts of hydro¬ 
gen, it would be better to restrict it to that. Although, 
as Dr. Redwood had said, the term arsenious acid was 
perfectly definite, there being no true salt of hydrogen 
recognizable, and although it was not always necessary 
in pharmacy to give strictly accurate names, yet it was 
undesirable to suggest by similarity of name a similarity 
of character where such had no existence. The staple 
recommendation in Professor Attfield’s paper was the sub¬ 
stitution of the metallic names potassium, sodium, calcium, 
for the alkaline or earthy names, potash, soda and lime, 
and, on the whole, he thought this recommendation a 
wise one. At the same time he was not prepared to go 
quite so far as Professor Attfield had gone with regard 
to the history of that class of names, or with regard 
to the importance and necessity of the change. He 
was quite aware of the fact that in the writings of La¬ 
voisier and his colleagues, sufficient would be found to 
warrant Professor Attfield’s proposition, but there were 
also to be found there a large number of remarks of a 
totally different character and tendency. It would be 
found in reality that the habit of expressing the con¬ 
stituents of salts as binary compounds, did not originate 
until long after the Lavoisierian period ; in fact, not 
until the days of Davy and Berzelius, when the electro¬ 
chemical theory was founded. It would be found that 
the Lavoisierian nomenclature could bo traced, in a 
great measure, to De Morveau, and his older names 
were of a different character. His notion was not so 
much to define the composition of bodies as to define 
their chemical nature; what were now called sulphates 
he called “vitriols,” and what we call nitrates, he called 
“nitres,” differentiating them as iron vitriol and copper 
vitriol, and he might have gone on to say potash vitriol, 
and so on; as he did with the nitres, for he spoke of 
potash nitre and soda nitre. He did not imply by this 
that the former was a compound of nitric acid on the 
one hand with potash on the other, but that it was a 
substance of one particular kind, w T hich was called a 
nitre or a vitriol or a fluor, as the case might be, and 
that the varieties were expressible by the words de fer , 
potash, etc. This was well seen in the older Latin names; 
for instance, wdiat is now called chloride of sodium was 
called indifferently muriaticum nitratum or nitratum 
muriaticum, w r hich did not associate the idea of the con¬ 
stituents, but rather endeavoured to indicate clearly the 
nature of the substance or class of the substance with¬ 
out expressing its ultimate composition. The idea of 
ultimate composition, although it was to be found in 
Lavoisier, was rather superadded by the results of the 
electro-chemical theory. Under these circumstances, 
therefore, he should not hesitate to use the term iodide 
of potash, meaning that the salt was the potash variety 
of iodide; still, on the whole, it was objectionable that 
one set of potash compounds should be called potash, 
and the w r ord potassium used in other cases.. Then, 
again, w r ith regard to ammonium and ammonia; am¬ 
monia w r as such a many-faced substance that it was diffi¬ 
cult to say wdiich should preponderate. When the salts 
w'ere analogous to those of potassium, and bore a mineral 
