579 
Tllli CODEX AND THE BRITISH PHARMACOPCEIA 
missioners, and in a masterly style: this is as might have been expected with 
Professor Dumas as president. ]t is not necess iry, neither do I intend, to pro¬ 
duce a translation of the entire Preface, but there are certain passages which 
seem to me to have a particular interest for the })liarmaceutist, and, to a degree, 
a bearing upon the present condition of pharmacy in this country ; the following 
paragraph wall strike the pharmaceutist as in some sort setting forth the duty 
expected from him. It is the province of the medical man, according to his ex¬ 
perience and regulated by his conscience, to prescribe all such medicaments as 
he may judge necessary, suitable, or convenient. I'lie pharmaceutist should pre¬ 
pare these forms wdth fidelity, so far as they are explicit or clear, or so that the 
Pharmacopoeia to which they belong is plainly indicated ; ahvays excepting cir¬ 
cumstances under which prudence being more than usually called for warns him 
to protect his own responsibility by precautions, for which every prescriber 
W'ould thank him ; the pharmaceutist has only to secure the exact and honest 
preparation of the prescriptions entrusted to him. But, say the Commissioners, 
it becomes evident every day, that inasmuch as energetic medicines increase in 
number, purity, concentration, and power, it is more necessary that the phar¬ 
maceutist, trusted with the preparation of them, their preservation, their ma¬ 
nipulation, and their doses, should be wmll instructed, careful, and faithful. 
Here let me observe that the Commissioners, neglecting to take advantage of 
the discussions on the P. B. in the matter of doses, have also neglected to sup)- 
ply a posological table. 
To what dangers, continue the Commissioners, wmuld not families be exposed 
if the dispenser did not know that chloride of raercury^ might indicate either a 
violent poison or an innocent purgative, and that there is nothing in common 
between chloride and cyanide of potassium, so easily confounded by the ignorant. 
The pharmaceutist requires a larger and better kind of instruction or educa¬ 
tion, since the progress of therapeutics places in his hands a greater number of 
remedies or medicaments more pow'erful, more susceptible of change, and more 
op)en to adulteration, in the use of which the slightest mistake endangers the 
life of the sufferer, and from which the smallest deviation betrays the hopes of 
the prescriber. When this conviction touches even England, enlightened by 
accidents multipDlying before her eyes, and by the numberless miseries which 
follow in their train, it is assuredly not the time for France, where it has always 
been upheld, to select for abandoning it. 
Thus far are these paragraphs of the Preface pdain and outspoken, as regards 
the responsibility of, and the necessity for a fixed standard of education for the 
dispenser and pharmaceutist; how sincerely and frequently have I wished that, 
on w’riting the pireface to the P. B. of 18G4, the Medical Council had been 
equally impressed with its importance, and solicitous for its accomplishment, and 
as plainly arid boldly have set it forth, and thus have given a most important 
assistance tow'ards the attainment of the much desired extended Pharmacy Act. 
Is the p)reface to the revised edition written, or is it too late to urge this pjoint? 
I hope not. 
I pass now to that portion of the Preface which treats of the divisions of the 
Codex, which are three in number, to wit—Preliminary observations or re¬ 
marks, Materia Medica, and the Pharmacopoeia or preparations and compounds, 
or, in otlier wmrds, chemicals and galenicals. 
Under preliminary remarks, weights and measures are noticed first. It being 
compulsory now in France to use, in weighing or measuring, the decimal-metric 
system, substances employed by weight are expressed in grammes or multiples 
thereof, measures of capacity in litres or multiples thereof, in the work. - There 
are now four tables relating to weights, the principal one of which compares the 
value of medicinal weights used in other countries by the French gramme, 
which it is not necessary to read here or write out. The only measures of 
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