226 
Weights  and  Measures. 
f  A.m  Jour.  Pharm. 
1       May,  1877. 
name  !"  (p.  27.)  In  this  very  remarkable  announcement,  the  aspiring 
opponent  of  the  Convention  has  evidently  not  taken  the  precaution  to 
secure  the  advice  of  Legal  Counsel. 
While  we  believe  that  the  existing  method  of  constituting  the  Con- 
vention could  not  well  be  improved,  we  are  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  an  authority  given  by  the  National  Government  to  a  standard  of 
so  much  importance  as  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  would  be  very 
desirable.  Fully  recognizing  both  the  difficulty  and  the  impolicy  of 
any  penal  enforcement  of  such  a  standard  in  a  country  where,  as  Dr. 
Squibb  has  stated  it,  "  every  man  has  a  right  to  have  his  disease  treated 
as  he  pleases,"  we  do  not  think  it  necessarily  follows  that,  "  hence  we 
cannot  hope  to  have  a  governmental  pharmacopoeia  in  any  true  sense 
of  the  term."  (p.  23.)  Were  the  call  of  the  Convention  to  emanate, 
by  law,  from  a  Secretary  of  one  of  the  Departments — the  Interior, 
the  War,  or  the  Navy, — with  such  extension  of  the  constituency  as 
might  be  thought  proper,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  official 
invitations  to  co-operation  would  be  much  more  generally  responded  to, 
and  that  the  resulting  work  of  the  Convention  would  have  the  prestige 
of  a  governmental  sanction  and  authority  ;  at  least  to  the  extent  of 
preventing  the  professional  scandal  of  a  rival  Pharmacopoeia,  such  as 
we  are  just  now  so  causelessly  threatened  with. 
The  discussion  of  the  primary  portion  of  my  subject  has  extended  so 
far  beyond  my  expectations  and  desire,  that  I  am  compelled  reluctantly 
to  defer  the  second  branch,  namely  :  proposed  changes  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia and  its  Plan,  to  another  occasion. 
WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. 
By  Edward  Gaillard,  Ph.G. 
[Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  April  17th,  1877.) 
It  is  stated  in  the  "  Home  Cyclopedia  of  the  World's  Progress, 
that  weights  and  measures  were  invented  by  Phidion  of  Argos,  869 
B.  C. 
They  became  general  in  most  countries  soon  afterwards.  Standards 
of  weights  and  measures  were  provided  for  the  whole  kingdom  by  the 
Sheriffs  of  London,  8  Richard  I,  A.  D.  1 197.  Standards  were  again 
fixed  in  England  in  i.257.  They  were  equalized  for  the  United 
Kingdom  in  1825,  and  no  doubt  extended  over  her  colonies  by  early 
settlers. 
