THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 

MA  V,  1904.. 
THE  PHARMACIST  AND  THE  PHARM  ACOPCEI  A. 
By  M.  I.  Whbert. 
Apothecary  at  the  German  Hospital,  Philadelphia. 
A  number,  if  not  all,  of  the  American  pharmaceutical  journals 
have  recently  published  contributed  articles  and,  in  several  instances, 
even  editorials,  decrying  the  use  of  the  metric  system  of  weights 
and  measures  in  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia,  and  intimating, 
if  not  positively  asserting,  that  the  introduction  of  alternative  form- 
ulas  would  make  the  Pharmacopoeia  more  popular  with  that  class  of 
pharmacists  that  have  been,  and  are,  contenting  themselves  with  one 
or  the  other  of  the  Dispensatories  or  other  text-books  that  are 
allowed  to  use  the  text  of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  in  whole  or  in  part,  as 
they  see  fit. 
The  writers  of  these  several  articles  have,  however,  lost  sight  of 
the  peculiar  conditions  existing  in  American  Pharmacy,  and  have 
not  taken  into  consideration  the  history  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  several  treatises,  or  so-called  commentaries,  and  their 
relation  to  the  Pharmacopoeia. 
In  the  following  pages  an  effort  has  been  made  to  trace  in  outline 
the  history  of  the  more  important  American  dispensatories,  and  to 
consider  to  some  extent  the  effect  they  have  had  on  the  use  and 
popularity  of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  and  on  the  progress  of  medicine 
and  pharmacy  in  general. 
In  an  article,  limited  as  this  naturally  must  be,  it  will  not  be  pos- 
sible to  review,  or  even  to  enumerate,  all  of  these  publications,  and 
we  will  confine  ourselves  therefore  to  the  enumeration  of  such  as 
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