Am.  Jour.  Pharm: ) 
Sept.,  1878.  J 
Official  or  Officinal? 
449 
word  officinal  to  the  contents  of  a  pharmacist's  shop,  and  to  that 
portion  of  the  contents  which  is  pharmacopoeial,  is  radically  wrong, 
and  should  be  avoided." — Note  to  "  Attfield's  Chemistry,"  5th  Ed., 
P-  25. 
It  has  been  objected  that  the  "  innovation,"  as  it  is  called,1  has 
nowhere  received  support.  In  refutatian  of  this  I  note  that  it  has 
already  been  adopted  by  Prof.  Attfield,  in  his  "  Chemistry  ;"  Mr. 
Squire,  in  his  "  Companion  to  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  Mr.  Wills 
— the  most  successful  teacher  of  preliminary  pharmacy  in  England — 
in  the  Westminster  College  of  Chemistry  and  Pharmacy,  and  in  our 
own  country  by  the  U.  S.  Marine  Hospital  Service.  This  ought 
surely  to  be  authority  sufficient  to  warrant  the  luke-warm  in  deciding 
in  its  favor,  since  the  outlook  is  so  bright. 
Official  has  another  advantage  ;  it  is  one  syllable  shorter  than  the 
old  word. 
The  objection  that  the  word  is  new  cannot  obtain,  because  it  long 
has  been,  and  is  in  daily  use  in  governmental  circles.  It  is  only  taking 
a  new  direction. 
The  customary  use  of  the  term  unofficinal  is  radically  wrong, — its 
true  meaning  being  that  anything  that  is  unofficinal  is  not  to  be  had  in 
the  shops  ;  while  many  articles  that  have  never  been  accredited  a  place 
in  any  Pharmacopoeia,  and  others  that  have  been  expunged,  are 
constantly  kept  on  sale  in  the  shops.  This  ambiguity  will  cease  to 
-exist  with  the  adoption  of  the  term  unofficial,  which  has  but  one 
meaning  in  medicine  :  not  recognized  by  a  national  authority. 
In  view  of  all  this,  I  beg  authors  that  are  about  to  issue  books  that 
may  be  used  as  authority,  and  the  Pharmacopoeial  Convention  of  the 
Sixth  Revision,  to  note  the  term  and  adopt  it,  thereby  accepting  the 
inevitable. 
I  hope  we  may  not  be  given  an  opportunity  to  say,  with  Job, 
"  They  have  refused  to  receive  correction." 
Philadelphia,  Eighth  mo.  20th,  1878. 
Remarks  by  the  Editor. — It  will  be  noticed  that  the  arguments 
advanced  by  Dr.  Murray  in  favor  of  the  change  present  nothing  new, 
^ee  article  by  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller,  on  "Official  and  Officinal,"  "  Amer.  Jour. 
Pilar.,"  April,  1875. 
29 
