PHARMACOPCEIA OF ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS. 327 
The very term, " salt," as it is now used, is most objection- 
able; conveying an idea, in chemistry, utterly at variance 
with its ordinary acceptation. The present system of chemical 
nomenclature is most unlikely to be permanent, different 
principles being acted on in naming perfectly analogous 
groups of amphide salts. Is the science of medicine to be 
perpetually agitated by every wind of nomenclature, confu- 
sion and danger to human life being the necessary consequence 
of every sudden change ? 
Leaving the preface, we now turn to the body of the work 
itself. And here we are startled by the alteration of the 
liquid measure, from the wine to the imperial gallon, and 
shocked by the excessively careless manner in which the 
alteration is effected; no comparison, whatever, is instituted 
between the new and the old measures; no notice is taken of 
the fact, that the new ounce is about eighteen grains lighter 
than the old; or that the new pint is 1460,5 grains heavier 
than the old. The number of grains of distilled water con- 
tained in the imperial gallon, is not even hinted at; and there 
is not the slightest allusion to the change of measures through- 
out the body of the work. Now, when it is recollected the 
class of persons for whose use the Pharmacopoeia is principally 
intended, and the dreadful consequences liable to ensue from 
mistake, this negligence must be considered as most culpable. 
How can the members of the College expect apothecaries' 
apprentices and druggists' assistants to be less liable to error 
than themselves. When we find a council of sage medical 
gentlemen, ^'with spectacles on nose, and brows of monstrous 
size," writing "decem," instead of duas, [vide Errata;) "un- 
cias duas," instead of drachmas duas {vide Tinctura Ammoniae 
Composita;) "tribus," instead of duabus, {vide Ammoniae 
Liquor, F.;) and prescribing the materials for preparing prussic 
acid of the strength of two grains in the "ounce," instead of 
" 100 grains," surely we need not be astonished, if a stupid 
boy should make arsenical solution with eighty grains to the 
wine pint, in place of the imperial. 
In turning over the pages of the Materia Medica, we con- 
