EDITORIAL. 
91 
step  highly  coodocive  to  uniformity  in  practice,  because  the  formulae  of 
the  two  countries  are  constantly  used  by  each  other,  and  more  particularly 
the  British  formulae  by  us,  owing  to  the  large  amount  of  English  medical 
literature  in  use  in  the  United  States.  As  we  are  equally  anxious  that 
this  assimilation  should  take  place,  we  take  the  liberty  of  introducing 
quotation  from  Dr.  Wilson's  letter  bearing  on  the  subject. 
"It  was  in  the  beginning  of  March  of  last  year,  that  I  brought  befoire 
the  Scottish  branch  of  the  National  Pharmacopoeia  Committee,  of  which 
I  am  Secretarjr,  what  purported  to  be  a  proposition  to  change  the  grain 
weight  for  solids  in  medicine,  so  as  to  render  it  an  integral  part  of  the 
Imperial  or  Avoirdupois  weight,  and  thus  assimilate  properly  and  funda- 
mentally, the  medicinal  weights  for  solids  and  fluids,  at  once  with  each 
other,  and  with  the  ordinary  commercial  weight.  A  sub  committee  v/as 
immediately  appointed  to  consider  it,  and  the  plan  was  directed  to  be 
communicated  to  the  two  other  committees  in  London  and  Dublin.  The 
opposition  was  at  first  strong  in  all  the  committees  ;  but  in  the  month  of 
April,  the  Edinburgh  committee  agreed,  on  the  motion  of  Prof.  Christi- 
son,  to  recommend  the  plan  for  adoption,  as  the  best  under  the  circum- 
stances ;  and  this  determination  was  followed  by  an  expression  of  full 
concurrence  from  the  Scottish  branch  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society. 
The  opinions  of  the  other  committees  rapidly  came  round;  and  finally,  at 
a  convocation  of  the  whole,  held  in  London,  in  May,  my  suggestion  was 
formally  adopted.  In  an  attempt  at  that  time,  which  I  was  desired  to 
make  to  convince  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  London,  I  had  the  same 
success  at  the  commencement  that  attended  me  in  all  the  others;  though 
I  had  at  once  here  the  advantage  of  the  support  of  Dr.  Kedwood,  their 
able  Professor  of  Pharmacy.  In  June,  1859,  this  gentleman  further 
v/rote  to  me,  that  the  inquiries  he  had  recently  made  had  tended  greatly 
to  strengthen  the  opinion  he  previously  entertained,  that  the  use  by  drug- 
gists of  two  sorts  of  weights,  agreeing  in  name  but  differing  in  value,  leads 
to  much  inaccuracy  in  the  preparation  of  medicines,  and  that  he  knows 
of  no  better  way  to  remedy  this  evil,  which  he  designates  as  one  of  great 
magnitude,  than  that  which  I  had  suggested." 
Our  readers  will  thus  see  that,  in  all  probability,  the  new  British  Phar- 
macopoeia, which  Dr.  Wood  writes  may  be  expected  at  latest  in  October 
next,  will  contain  these  new  weights,  and  in  view  of  that  it  cannot  but  be 
manifest  that  their  adoption  in  the  U.  S,  Pharmacopoeia  would  be  a  step 
in  the  right  direction.  We  know  that  very  able  and  influential  opponents 
of  this  proposition  exist  among  us,  but  as  yet  but  little  expression  has  oc- 
curred, and  one  object  of  this  notice  is  to  request  the  thinking  members  of 
the  Medical  and  Pharmaceutical  professions  to  manifest  more  interest  in 
a  subject  that  m  vitally  concerns  them.  Our  space  is  so  limited  in  this 
number,  that  these  remarks  are  necessarily  curtailed,  but  we  hope  in  a 
future  number  to  recur  to  the  subject,  and  meanwhile  ask  its  consideration 
bv  our  readers. 
The  United  Society  of  Chemists  and  Druggists. — It  is  well  known 
to  a  large  number  of  our  readers  that,  since  1841,  an  influential  Associa- 
tion has  grown  into  existence  in  Great  Britain,  called  "  the  Pharmaceutical 
