B.  s.  proctor's  report  on  weights  and  measures.  121 
and  grains  about  one  eleventh.)  This  is  the  system  which  was 
provisionally  adopted  by  the  British  colleges  in  their  recent  revis- 
ion of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  but  which  was  finally  abandoned. 
In  regard  to  this  disturbance  of  the  value  of  the  grain,  Mr. 
Proctor  well  remarks : 
"  At  present  we  have  in  Britian,  one  grain,  about  which  there  is  no 
mistake  ;  while  all  other  weights  are  subject  to  equivocal  interpretation. 
The  scruple  is  20  grains  in  England  and  18  in  Ireland  ;  the  drachm  [troy 
or  avoirdupois,]  is  60  grains,  or  27  grains  in  England,  or  54  in  Ireland  5 
so  the  ounce  is  480  or  437  grains  ;  the  pound  7000  or  5760  grains.  We 
cling  to  the  grain,  reluctant  to  lose  our  last  unequivocal  weight." 
These  attempts  at  amalgamating  the  troy  and  avoirdupois 
weights,  while  they  show  the  natural  desire  to  retain,  if  possible, 
the  best  parts  of  either  system,  show  also  the  difficulty  of  ac- 
complishing this  end. 
"  So  the  two  systems  are  pitted  against  one  another ;  compromise 
is  found  impracticable,  the  contest  is  a  struggle  for  existence,  a  war  of 
extermination,  which  mast  end  in  the  annihilation  of  one  or  both  of  the 
competitors." 
Mr.  Proctor,  after  suggesting  still  another  modification  of  these 
ill-assorted  rivals,  based  upon  the  Irish  system,  (increasing  our 
present  grain  about  one  eightieth)  thus  adverts  to  the  report  on 
weights  and  measures  published  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Ameri- 
can Pharmaceutical  Association  for  the  year  1859. 
"  The  proposition  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  un- 
questionably the  most  carefully  considered,  the  most  elaborate,  and  most 
ambitious  of  the  proposed  plans,  is  based  on  the  belief,  and  I  think  I  may 
say  the  well-grounded  belief,  that  for  all  practical  purposes,  counting  by 
eights  has  the  greatest  sum  of  advantages.  It  is  founded,  like  the  metri- 
cal system,  on  geometrical  measurement ,  a  sextant  of  the  equator  being 
8  times  divided  by  8,  to  give  their  module  or  radical  measure  of  length 
(15|  inches) ;  the  cube  of  this  measure  gives  the  root  of  the  table  of 
capacities,  under  the  name  of  modius.  The  weight  of  a  modius  of  water 
gives  the  pondus,  or  root  of  their  system  of  weights. 
This  octonary  system  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  proposal  for  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  weights  used  in  pharmacy  ;  but  for  revolutionizing  the  whole 
system  of  metrology.  It  does  not  harmonize  with  any  other  system,  and 
its  advantages  would  be  materially  reduced  if  it  met  with  only  partial 
adoption. 
The  compilers  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  have  shown  their  skill  in 
evading  a  difficulty  which  they  could  not  overcome.  They  were  bound  to 
use  such  weights  in  the  work  as  would  not  be  liable  to  be  misunderstood  5 
