320  International  Pharmacopceia.        {AaijSy i,  im*1' 
indications  that  the  general  interest  in  and  acceptance  of  the  new 
chemistry  with  the  adherence  of  its  writers  to  the  metrical  system  will 
serve  as  an  easy  introduction  for  the  essential,  necessary  for  a  satis- 
factory means  of  intercourse. 
And  problably,  also,  the  use  of  the  metrical  system  will  have  to 
become  more  familiar  to  scientific  men  at  large  than  it  is  at  present, 
before  universal  communication  will  be  seriously  attempted  in  this 
direction.  But  this  question  aside  for  the  present,  we  are  on  a  foot- 
ing for  establishing  at  once  a  unity  of  standard  for  the  composition 
of  the  principal  preparations  of  the  Pharmacopoeias  of  the  English- 
speaking  people,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  radical  differences  be- 
tween the  systems  of  weights  and  measures  in  Great  Britain  and  in 
this  country  respectively. 
The  expedient  needed  to  be  adopted  being  no  other  than  for  the 
United  States  and  British  pharmacopoeial  authorities  to  unite  in 
putting  into  force  the  rule  established  by  the  Scandinavian  nations 
,at  their  international  convention  held  in  1865,  when  the  pharma- 
copoeias of  Norway,  Sweden  and  Denmark  were  unified,  and  which 
rule  is  to  express  the  relative  quantities  used  in  pharmacy  in 
proportional  parts  by  weight,  as  e.  g.,  two  parts  by  any  system  of 
weight  of  the  first  ingredient,  four  of  the  second  and  one  of  the 
third,  etc.,  thus  securing  like  relative  proportions  in  all  standard 
compounds. 
At  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeial  convention,  which  met  at  Washington 
in  1870,  the  following  resolution  of  like  import  was  ordered  to  be 
taken  as  a  basis  for  the  last  decennial  revision  of  our  Pharmacopoeia ; 
but,  for  some  reason  never  satisfactorily  made  known,  the  Committee 
on  Revision  appears  to  have  disregarded  its  plain  provisions  : 
"Resolved,  That  measures  of  capacity  be  abandoned  in  the  Pharmacopoeia 
and  that  quantities  in  all  formulas  be  expressed  both  in  weights  and  in  parts 
by  weight." 
The  consolidation  already  effected  of  the  London,  Dublin  and 
Edinburgh  in  the  British  Pharmacepoeia,  the  several  Pharmacopoeias 
of  Central  Europe  constituting  the  German  Empire  and  some  others 
all  tend  to  assure  the  practicability,  as  well  as  to  suggest  the  advisa- 
bility, of  the  step  here  proposed. 
The  advantages  to  be  obtained  by  an  internatinnal  adjustment  of 
at  least  the  two  Pharmacopoeias  in  question,  so  that  a  given  name 
shall  indicate  a  preparation  identical  in  composition  and  strength  in 
