428 
Editorial. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Phaem. 
1    Sept.  1,  1872. 
will  become  obsolete  in  future  as  they  became  in  the  past.  How  many  of  the 
rising  generation  remember  now  what  the  "  salt  of  opium"  was  more  than  sixty 
years  ago?  Who  would  now  call  carbonate  of  potassa  "  salt  of  wormwood?'' 
And  who  meets  with  the  numerous  species  of  the  genus  "  magisterium"  now-a- 
days,  except  in  formulas  that  have  been  handed  down  from  generation  to  gene- 
ration ?  We  are  no  advocate  of  useless  innovations  ;  but  we  concede  the  right 
of  existence  to  every  theory  based  upon  sound  reasoning,  until  the  very  foun- 
dation of  it  has  been  proven  to  be  incorrect  and  untenable. 
The  following  is  the  communication  which  has  led  to  these  remarks: 
If  any  department  of  knowledge  has  been  made  difficult  for  the  student, 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years,  chemistry  deserves  to  take  the  head  and  front 
of  the  offence.  It  was  once  no  difficult  thing  for  any  intelligent  lad  of  fifteen 
to  comprehend  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  science,  as  given  to  us  in 
such  works  as  Turner's  and  Kane's  Chemistries.  Now,  not  only  have  changes 
(some  of  them  necessary,  indeed)  been  made  in  the  nomenclature,  but  this 
nomenclature  has  itself  experienced  variations  that  appear  entirely  needless, 
and  that  serve  only  to  perplex  the  learner.  The  needless  innovations  objected 
to  have  made  chemistry  the  hardest  study  the  young  apothecary  has  to  master, 
for  in  these  days  an  apothecary  must  be  a  chemist  in  knowledge,  although  not 
one  to  the  fullest  extent  in  practice. 
As  illustrations  of  innovations,  I  cite  the  use  of  a  new  kind  of  adjectives, 
that  do  not  in  the  least  degree  improve  the  form.  These  adjectives  are  made 
by  changing  the  termination  of  a  noun  into  ic  and  ous.  Formerly  it  was  car- 
bonate of  potassa,  then  it  was  potassic  carbonate;  now,  it  is  carbonate  of  pot- 
assium. The  oxides  of  mercury  have  become  mercuric  and  mercuroas  oxide. 
Hydrate  of  chloral  is  chloral  hydrate.  Sulphate  of  soda  became  sodic  sul- 
phate, then  sulphate  of  sodium. 
What  is  the  use  ? 
"  Carbonate  of  potassa"  gave  the  knowledge,  and  fixed  it,  that  it  meant 
carbonate  of  the  oxide  of  potassium.  Now  the  learner  conceives  of  a  direct 
combination  of  carbon  and  potassium,  with  which  oxygen  has  nothing  to  do, 
when  he  reads  carbonate  of  'potassium. 
Then  we  have  "  artiads,"  "  dyads,"  and  numerous  other  new-fangled  terms, 
without  which  we  once  "got  along"  a  great  deal  better  than  we  now  do  with 
them. 
All  these  things  are  so  much  needless  new  matter  to  learn,  requiring  more 
time  and  labor  to  be  spent. 
Two  hundred  years  hence,  if  invention  goes  on  as  now,  no  dictionary  will 
hold  all  the  new  terms.  For  mercy's  sake  to  our  posterity,  we  should  "hold 
on."  Apothecary. 
The  Claims  of  Secret  Medicines  and  Specifics  are  generally  without 
bounds,  aiming  to  deceive  the  credulous,  whether  they  be  found  among  the 
sufferers  or  among  the  easy-minded  pharmacists  or  physicians.  That  such 
claims  and  unwarrantable  statements  need  not  go  on  unchecked  was  proven 
last  spring  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York.  We  clip  the  following  from  a 
newspaper  of  that  city,  in  illustration  of  this,  and  append  merely  the  charitable 
desire  that  the  manufacturers  of  all  nostrums  might  fare  similarly : 
A  patent  medicine  case  has  just  been  decided  by  Judge  Brady,  in  the  Su- 
preme Court,  the  parties  being  Dr.  Byrn  and  "  The  American  Agriculturist." 
The  latter,  it  would  appear,  has  been  classing  the  plaintiff  with  Edward  A. 
