Am.  Jour.  Pharm, 
Jan.,  1881. 
I        French  Metric  System,  Orthography.  11 
prescription  hastily  written  by  the  physician  at  the  bedside  of  his 
patient  (it  may  be  nnder  difficuhies  better  appreciated  than  described) 
is  presented  to  be  deciphered ;  when  the  choice  between  the  illy-con- 
trived cabalistic  characters  ^  and  3  mnst  be  hastily  and  nnerringly 
decided  npon ;  the  messenger  is  in  haste,  and  hesitancy  and  delay  are 
regarded  as  evidences  of  incompetency,  and  yet  if  there  ,is  to  be  an 
element  of  uncertainty  about  a  new  system,  why  throw  away  the  old 
with  which  we  are  familiar  to  take  up  an  imperfect  new  one. 
The  metric  system  has  been  adopted  by  the  Pharmacopoeial  conven- 
tion. The  subject  of  orthography  is  by  no  means  an  unimportant  one^ 
and  let  us  by  all  means  retain  the  original  words  and  keep  the  whole 
system  in  its  perfection. 
It  is  common  in  the  English  language  to  have  the  termination  re — 
meagre,  massacre,  ogre,  acre,  lucre,  nacre,  calibre,  accoutre — and  even 
Bostonians^  the  inhabitants  of  that  great  centre  of  literary  excellence^ 
of  which  they  are  justly  proud,  where  the  Websterian  innovations 
flourish  best — still  spell  French  words,  which  have  been  engrafted  in 
the  English  language,  with  the  original  orthography,  and  they  still  go 
to  the  theatre  and  spell  it  re  without  a  protest.  We  have  hundreds  of 
French  words  in  our  language  that  have  become  firmly  established,  and 
none  will  deny  that  they  are  elegant,  expressive  and  forcible,  whilst 
their  extensive  and  growing  use  must  prove  that  they  supply  a  real 
need.  Who  would  wish  to  discard  such  words  as  depot,  bouquet, 
beau,  dessert,  etc.,  and  how  could  their  places  be  filled  ?  and  hundreds  of 
others  could  be  named  if  necessary.  Prof.  James  Hadley,  of  Yale,  in 
an  article  in  Webster  on  a  "  Brief  History  of  the  English  Language,^'" 
after  describing  in  a  very  interesting  way  the  manner  in  which  French 
words  were  introduced  in  our  language,  remarks  :  "  In  the  schools  it 
is  stated  that  during  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  French 
was  still  used  as  the  language  of  instruction  and  the  medium  for  learn- 
ing Latin,  but  that  during  the  last  half  of  the  same  century  the  Eng- 
lish gradually  took  its  place.  Now,  English,  as  spoken  by  the  higher 
classes  who  learned  it,  would  naturally  be  intermixed  with  French  ex- 
pressions. It  would  have  been  otherwise  if  they  had  regarded  the 
English  as  a  superior  language,  as  having  a  finer  nature,  or  a  higher 
cultivation  than  their  own.  But  they  doubtless  felt  that  by  an  inter- 
mixing of  French  they  were  enriching  and  ennobling  an  unrefined 
and  meagre^  idiom.  Whenever  the  French  word,  which  rose  to  their 
mind,  bore  a  shade  of  meaning  for  which  they  had  no  equivalent  in 
^  Query. — Why  does  one  of  the  editors  of  Webster  himself  prefer  in 
composition  to  use  the  re  termination — meagre  instead  of  meager — yet 
recommends  others  to  use  meager  in  tlie  body  of  the  book  ? 
