2iS  Spoonful  Doses.  {AmMa^"i9o\arm' 
SPOONFUL  DOSES. 
A  DEFINITION  FOR,  AND  THEIR  EQUIVALENTS. 
By  M.  I.  WlXBERT, 
Apothecary  at  the  German  Hospital,  Philadelphia. 
The  subject  of  doses  and  their  administration  would  strike  one  as 
being  of  more  importance  than  the  amount  of  thought  that  has 
been  expended  on  it  would  appear  to  indicate. 
Volumes  have  been  written  on  the  standardization  of  drugs  and 
their  preparations,  while  little  or  no  attention  has  been  paid  to  how 
these  standardized  drugs  and  preparations  are  administered  to  the 
patient  whose  ills  and  affections  they  are  intended  to  cure  or  relieve. 
In  a  paper  published  in  the  March  number  of  the  American 
Journal  of  Pharmacy  the  writer  called  attention  to  the  difference 
that  existed  in  the  capacity  of  the  various  medicine  measures  that 
are  in  use  at  the  present  time.  In  the  same  paper  attention  was 
also  directed  to  the  variation  that  may  be  occasioned  by  the  per- 
sonal equation  of  the  nurse,  or  the  person  doing  the  measuring. 
That  there  should  be  at  least  a  semblance  of  accuracy  in  the 
administration  of  liquid  medicines  will  readily  be  admitted  by  all 
who  have  ever  given  the  subject  a  reasonable  amount  of  thought. 
This  is  the  more  apparent  when  we  remember  that  there  are,  under 
the  most  favorable  conditions,  so  many  factors  that  may  modify  or 
change  the  effect  that  certain  substances  are  likely  to  have  on  the 
animal  organism,  either  in  health  or  disease,  that  the  matter  of  know- 
ing, approximately  at  least,  what  amount  of  a  certain  drug  has 
brought  about  a  particular  change  or  result  is  not  only  of  interest, 
but  may  be  of  vital  importance,  as  it  is  only  by  analogy,  or  the 
careful  study  of  the  effects  of  corresponding  doses  on  various  indi- 
viduals, that  we  are  able  to  make  any  scientific  progress  in  the 
rational  application  and  use  of  medicinal  substances. 
Another  interesting  possibility  is  the  fact  that  occasionally  start- 
ling and  sometimes  serious  effects  are  caused  by  drugs  under  certain 
conditions.  Here  again  we  see  how  important  it  may  be,  not  only 
for  the  physician,  and  the  patient  directly  interested,  but  also  for 
others,  to  know  exactly  how  much  or  how  little  of  a  drug  has 
caused  these  unlooked-for  or  secondary  effects.  In  this  connection 
it  should  be  remembered  that  instead  of  the  patient  having  an  idio- 
syncrasy or  an  abnormal  toleration  for  a  certain  drug,  it  is  always 
