THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
MARCH,  1  8  60. 
WEIGHTS  OF  THE  PHARMACOPCEIA. 
By  Alfred  B.  Taylor. 
There  seems  to  prevail  a  very  general  impression  that  the 
Medical  Convention  for  Revising  the  Pharmacopoeia  will,  at  its 
approaching  session,  adopt,  among  other  improvements,  some 
reform  in  the  system  of  Weights  and  Measures  at  present  in  use 
by  apothecaries.  Especially  in  view  of  the  recent  action  of  the 
London,  Edinburg  and  Dublin  Colleges  upon  the  subject,  does  it 
seem  probable  that  some  similar  modification  will  be  expected 
and  attempted  here. 
The  incongruity  and  inconvenience  of  our  present  duplex 
tables  of  weights  are  too  universally  admitted  to  need  a  con- 
demnation; and  the  method  pursued  to  unite  and  harmonize 
these  discordant  elements  by  the  British  Colleges,  after  careful 
deliberation,  might  appear  as  being  on  the  whole  the  simplest 
and  best  adapted  to  effect  the  object.  Without  altering  the 
"  Apothecaries'  Table/' — that  is,  the  divisions  and  denominations 
by  which  the  pharmaceutist  is  accustomed  to  estimate  in  com- 
pounding his  preparations,, — the  new  British  system  simply 
reduces  the  Troy  ounce  to  the  value  of  the  avoirdupois  ounce. 
The  latter  ounce  weighing  437i  grains,  and  the  former  ounce 
480  grains,  the  new  ounce  is  thus  made  to  weigh  !5L5  of  its  former 
&  7  °  480.0 
amount;  and  all  the  other  weights  of  the  apothecary — bodily — 
are  diminished  in  the  same  proportion,  or,  in  other  words,  our 
grains,  scruples,  drachms  and  ounces  are  all  reduced  1L  (about 
1)  in  weight. 
With  a  full  appreciation  of  the  labor  and  consideration  un- 
doubtedly bestowed  upon  this  reformation,  and  with  as  full  an 
appreciation  of  the  ability  and  high  professional  authority 
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