638 
BevieW'^,  etc. 
/  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      Dec,  1882. 
shall  content  ourselves  now  nierely  to  direct  attention  to  the  more  impor- 
tant changes. 
The  division  of  the  old  PharmacopcLna  into  a  primary  and  secondary  list 
of  drugs,  and  into  2:)reparations,  has  been  abolished,  and  a  single  alphabet- 
ical arrangement  adopted,  similar  to  that  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia, 
and  except  in  nomenclature  to  that  of  nearly  all  the  European  Pharmaco- 
poeias. The  drugs  derived  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdom  are  now 
concisely  described  as  to  their  physical,  and,  wherever  it  was  deemed 
necessary,  also  their  important  structural  or  chemical  characteristics. 
Processes  for  preparing  chemical  compounds  have  been  omitted,  except 
in  a  few  cases ;  but  each  chemical  is  defined  according  to  its  formula,  its 
physical  properties,  chemical  reactions  and  possible  impurities  or  adulte- 
rations. 
In  the  formulas  for  pharmaceutical  preparations  definite  quantities  have 
been  discarded,  except  where  necessary  on  account  of  the  dose,  as  for  the 
preparation  of  pills,  the  quantities  being  given  in  grains  and  grams ;  for 
citrate  of  magnesium,  in  grains  and  grams,  fluidounces  and  cubic  centi- 
meters; for  fluid  extracts,  in  grams  and  cubic  centimeters,  etc.  The  change 
made  in  the  last-named  case  we  consider  as  particularly  inopportune,  inas- 
much as  it  differs  from  the  general  plan  of  the  work  to  make  all  prepara- 
tions by  weight,  and  as  it  introduces  a  new  relation  of  weight  to  measure 
hitherto  unknown  in  American  pharmacy  ;  in  our  opinion,  these  prepara- 
tions could  have  been  easily  and  conveniently  made  to  represent  the  drug 
weight  for  weight ;  but  if  a  definite  and  uniform  relation  of  weight  to 
measure  was  considered  absolutely  necessary,  it  would  have  been  far  better 
to  leave  the  old  relation  undisturbed,  instead  of  adopting  a  measure  which, 
if  the  discarding  of  measures  be  found  of  the  convenience  and  exactness 
that  is  claimed  for  it,  must  necessarily  involve  another  change  in  the  near 
future. 
Pending  the  general  introduction  and  use  of  the  metric  system,  Ameri- 
can pharmacy  must  necessarily  be  in  a  state  of  transition,  which  has  been 
recognized  in  the  formulas  for  pills,  where  grains  and  their  equivalents  in 
grams  are  given,  but  discarded  in  those  for  fluid  extracts  where  only  gram 
weights  are  given  for  solids  and  liquids,  except  that  the  final  product  is  to 
measure  so  many  cubic  centimeters.  The  present  fluid  extracts  are  about. 
5  per  cent,  weaker  than  those  of  the  last  Pharmacopoeia. 
Considering  the  fact  that  the  spelling  of  the  metric  unit  of  weight,  gram^ 
is  steadily  gaining  ground  in  England,  we  can  now,  less  than  heretofore, 
approve  of  the  determination  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  to  make  it 
gramme.  Our  preceding  volume  contains  five  or  six  papers  presenting  the 
arguments  for  both  forms  of  orthography. 
The  practice  so  long  adhered  to  in  the  United  States  of  terminating  the 
names  of  the  organic  alkaloids  in  ia  or  ina  has  met  with  little  favor  else- 
where, and  even  here  it  was  not  followed  consistently.  The  Pharmaco- 
poeial  plan  of  making  the  Latin  names  of  the  alkaloids  ending  in  ina^  and 
the  English  names  in  me,  and  the  names  of  the  neutral  or  rather  non- 
alkaloidal  principles,  respectively,  in  inum  and  m,  is  a  very  commendable 
one. 
