580 
PHAEMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
capacity employed in the work are the litre, and the decimal divisions thereof; 
but as the quantities are mostly given by weight, the measure has rarely been 
called into use ; it is always easy to get at the volume of a given weight of 
liquid when its density is known. 
There are many substances ordered by spoonfuls, drops, etc., and these ex¬ 
pressions, referring to no accurately determined quantity, leave always an amount 
of uncertainty about the dose of a medicine. Medical men should bear this in 
mind w^hen they make use of this mode of prescribing ; but it must also be re¬ 
membered that the spoonful and the glassful are often the only practicable 
means of portioning the liquids, the administration of which is entrusted to the 
care of those who are about the invalid, and so a table showing the value by 
weight of spoonful, etc. is given, and, as it is an unusual one with us, I tran¬ 
scribe it in full, thus,— 
A coffee- or tea-spoonful of water.5 grammes. 
An ordinary or tablespoonful = 4 teaspoonfuls or . . 20 
A glassful = 8 tablespoonfuls or.ICO 
A handful of barley.= 80 
„ linseed.= 50 
„ „ meal . , 
„ dried mallow leaves 
. „ „ succory „ 
A pinch of chamomile flow^ers . 
„ arnica „ 
„ marsh-mallow „ 
„ coltsfoot „ 
„ mallow „ 
„ lime „ . 
„ aniseed. 
„ fennel seed . . . 
A fowl’s egg fresh-laid, about . 
„ the white alone 
„ the yolk „ 
Blanched almonds, each about . 
100 
40 
30 
2 
1 
2 
2 
1 
2 
2 
2 
64 
40 
20 
1 
The British Pharmacopceia bestows no such table as this, and it would with 
us be a retrograde movement, as handfuls and pinches are now only employed in 
the kitchen ; divided bottles and graduated glasses being in common use in 
England for portioning the doses of liquid medicines. 
For certain liquids, I quote from the Preface. The dose is frequently by dropjs, 
numerous circumstances influence the size of the drops which flow from bottles 
employed in pharmacies, and lead to notable differences in their weights. More¬ 
over, it frequently happens that the intermittent flowing of liquids is trans¬ 
formed into a continued thread stream during the act of measuring; to avoid 
this species of inaccuracy, and to arrive at more regular results than can be ob¬ 
tained from bottles of variable dimensions, many instruments or contrivances 
have been proposed : the preference is here given to a very simple compte-gonttes 
or drop-reckoner, by the use of which, if not absolute precision, still a sufficient 
degree of accuracy is obtained. It consists of a little flask or globular glass 
bottle, furnished with a small lateral tube, the interior diameter of which is 
adjusted so as to allow, by means of a slight inclination, a liquid to flow, drop 
by drop, and with great regularity. This instrument is considered in good 
order when, at a temperature of 15° C., twenty drops of distilled water w^eigh 
one gramme within about five centigrammes; as may be supposed, twenty 
drops of any other liquid than water would weigh differently: for instance, 
twenty drops of chloroform weigh only five grains, about one-third of a gramme; 
but whatever the weight may be, with this little compte-gouttes it is always the 
same at the same temperature. Many suggestions have, from time to time, been 
