292 
EDITORIAL. 
Colleges of Pharmacy deliberately considering the subject, and appointing 
delegates to a Convention to be held in New York, some time next autumn, 
bo as to prepare to bring the matter before Congress in a well digested 
form. TVe approve of this course, and believe that if each College would 
appoint an efficient committee, and proceed on a generally understood 
plan, so as to get at the root of the difficulties now experienced, the dele- 
gates would have something real to act on, and from the joint labors of all 
the Colleges, would be able to construct a tariff of standards, worthy of 
American Pharmacy, and fraught with the greatest usefulness to the medi- 
cal interests of the country. 
The Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America. By authority of the 
National Medical Convention, held at Washington, A. D. 1850. Phila- 
delphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1851. pp. 317, 8vo. 
The publication of the Pharmacopoeia was announced in the April num- 
ber of this Journal : we propose now, to give a condensed notice of those 
portions of the work, which bear the impress of the revisors ; and when 
sufficient time shall have elapsed, to enable pharmaceutists to give the new 
or modified formulae an impartial trial, we hope to receive their critical 
remarks, favorable or otherwise, for our pages. 
The List. — A comparison of the Officinal lists of 1840 and 1850, will ex- 
hibit, comparatively, few points of difference. Acetic acidh&s been placed 
there from among the preparations, its sp. grav. reduced to 1.041, and its 
strength directed to be determined by 100 grains of it, requiring 60 grains of 
bicarbonate of potassa for saturation. It is therefore eight times the strength 
of standard distilled vinegar, and is intended to be represented by the Com- 
mercial No. 8 acetic acid. Nitric acid is required to be of the density 1.42, 
which indicates an acid of the composition NO 5 , 4HO, the most permanent 
of the nitrates of water. We deem this a great improvement, and one that 
will enable the apothecary to comply with the letter of the Pharmacopoeia, 
when the strength of this acid is in question, because by boiling a weaker 
acid it concentrates till it arrives at that strength, by losing more water than 
acid, and by boiling a stronger acid it is reduced in strength, until it acquires 
that density, losing more acid than water. Aconite root, Metallic Arsenic, 
Cotton, Oil of bitter almonds, and Nitrate of Lead, have been introduced in 
reference to certain preparations, while Althea and Arnica flowers, Quince 
seeds, Extract of [Indian) Hemp, Frostwort, Burdock, Mace, Cod-liver oil, 
Eggs, Chlorate of Potassa. Brandy and Port Wine, are brought forward as 
an extension of the list, for extemporaneous prescriptions. It should also 
be noted that the word " Viospyros," now means the unripe fruit of the per- 
simmon, and not the bark, as in 1840. Changes in the Officinal names of 
drugs, should be made with jealous caution, and nothing but an alteration 
in the import of terms by the progress of science should justify them. The 
