SELECTED ARTICLES. 
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ART. XX.— ON THE CHOICE OF FORMULAE.— By M. D. G. 
Salles, Pharmacien. 
Among the innumerable formulae contained in the most 
accredited Pharmacopoeias and Formularies, a certain number 
are met with, which are every where generally in use; and 
in which it is admitted that perfect identity ought to exist; 
this, however, is far from being the case. It is only necessary 
to refer to the first pages of two or three Pharmacopoeias to be 
convinced that very great differences exist in the composition 
of medicines which bear the same name. If these difierences 
were always based upon the use to which the medicines are 
applied, or the doses in which they are administered in each 
country, and even in each locality, the subject would not call 
for observation. For example, it would not be more rea- 
sonable, to desire to force the people of the north, who 
generally bear alcoholic liquors well, to employ small doses 
of concentrated tinctures, as those of the French Codex, than 
to force upon the inhabitants of the middle regions, the 
adoption of the large doses of the less concentrated tinctures 
of the north. 
It is then, not of differences of this kind that I intend to speak, 
but only of those which originate in bad translations, differ- 
ence in weights and measures, or the caprice of authors, who 
suppose that they are doing more service by modifying the 
compositions of medicines in accordance with the opinions 
and theories of the day, than by presenting them in the way 
