14 
LECTURES ON THE BRITISH PHARMACOPOEIA, 
soon occurs in the new preparation, and hence the formula is even more un¬ 
satisfactory than before. Proctor recommended (Pharm. Journ., 2nd ser. vol. 
i. p. 10) the employment of ammonio-tartrate or ammonio-citrate of iron, rather 
than the potassio-tartrate or tartarated iron now ordered; and Soubeiran 
(Pharm. Journ., vol. iii. p. 544) suggested the use of acid tartrate of the pro¬ 
toxide of iron, giving formulas for the preparation of both the salt and the 
wine. Soubeiran’s wine has the advantage of resembling the old preparation 
so far as containing a protosalt of iron, but it is more acid. Obviously a for¬ 
mula that shall give a wine of iron of constant strength and appearance, is 
still much needed. A well-lmown pharmacologist is, however, now working on 
the subject (Pharm. Journ., 2nd ser. vol. v. p. 492) ; we may therefore hope to 
have a more satisfactory preparation in a future edition of the Pharmacopoeia. 
Thus, gentlemen, have I endeavoured to bring before you the actual cases 
in which the authors of the British Pharmacopoeia have taken advantage of the 
published researches, and adopted the suggested improvements of Pharmacolo¬ 
gists. I also have not hesitated to point out the many instances in which this 
course has been neglected. We are told in the preface to the British Pharma¬ 
copoeia, that in preparation of that work the General Medical Council of the 
United Kingdom found themselves committed to four difficult tasks, namely, 
“ to supersede three Pharmacopoeias, each of them long held in great repute,— 
to reconcile the varying usages, in pharmacy and prescriptions, of the people 
of three countries, hitherto in these respects separate and independent,—to 
consult the prepossessions of three important public professional bodies, which 
have ruled long and ably over this branch of medicine,—to represent accurately, 
yet with caution, the advancement made in chemistiy and pharmacy during 
the thirteen years which have elapsed since the iast edition of any of the 
Pharmacopoeias of the Colleges of Physicians was published.” To what extent 
the old Pharmacopoeias have been superseded is not for the pharmaceutist 
to determine. He only knows that he must dispense what the physician pre¬ 
scribes, and he finds that so far from having to “ alter or destroy all pharma¬ 
ceutic preparations made according to previous, and now altered formula},” 
(Preface, Brit. Pharm. p. xx.,) he will have to keep double stock for an inde¬ 
finite period. Still less can he decide on the manner in which the authors 
of previous Pharmacopoeias have been conciliated. But with regard to the 
removal of phannacopoeial discrepancies by blending the three books, and 
the extent to which the volume has been made the exponent of modern 
pharmacy, he can pronounce decided opinions. The fusion of the three 
Pharmacopoeias into one is an object to which the attention of therapeu¬ 
tists and pharmaceutists has long been directed, and the necessity of which 
was forcibly demonstrated in a paper read before the Pharmaceutical So¬ 
ciety by Squire, in the year 1845 (Pharm. Journ., vol. v. p. 200), and again 
in the volume with which that pharmacologist subsequently enriched the 
literature of pharmacy. The accomplishment of this object in the publication 
of the British Pharmacopoeia cannot but command the congratulations of phy¬ 
sician, pharmaceutist, and patient, and the manner in which discrepancies 
have been adjusted may be pronounced to be, on the whole, most satisfactory. 
But that the compilers of the Pharmacopoeia have either accurately or cau¬ 
tiously represented the advancement made in pharmacy during the past thir¬ 
teen years, is open to serious question. A review of the six lectures which 
have been delivered before you by request of your Council, and of the critical 
notices which have been published by the various medical, chemical, and 
pharmaceutical journals, must bequite sufficient to show that while the Materia 
Medica portion of the book is, on the whole, a success, that which relates to 
the preparations and compounds is to an equal extent a failure. Hor is this 
result astonishing when it is remembered that the British Pharmacopoeia has 
