THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
NOVEMBER,  1893. 
THE  UNITED  STATES  PH ARM ACOPCEI A  OF  1890. 
"By  George  M.  Beringer,  A.M.,  Ph.G. 
[Continued  from  p.  473."] 
The  extreme  conservatism  of  the  chemical  nomenclature,  is  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  radical  changes  that  have  been  adopted  in 
giving  the  botanical  names  of  plants  and  the  citation  of  authors  for 
such  names.  The  committee  have  adopted  the  rules  of  the  Botani- 
cal Club  of  the  A.  A.  A.  S.  which  were  adopted  as  recently  as 
August  19,  1892,  and  have  published  these  rules  on  page  XXXII, 
adding  another  unnecessary  page  to  an  already  too  large  volume. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  is  not  intended  as  a  botanical  text-book,  much 
less  as  a  botanical  authority,  and  it  is  presumed  that  the  committee 
were  fully  acquainted  with  the  unsettled  state  of  botanical  nomen- 
clature, before  lending  their  apparent  weight  of  authority  by  endors- 
ing these  rules. 
In  recent  years,  the  battle  of  nomenclature  caused  by  a  disagree- 
ment as  to  the  meaning  of  "the  law  of  priority  of  publication,"  has 
so  obscured  the  botanical  horizon,  that  botany  has  appeared  more  as  a 
study  of  plant  names  than  of  plants,  and  a  science  already  loaded 
down  with  a  mass  of  technical  terms,  is  being  buried  with  synonyms. 
The  Paris  code  of  1867,  stated  that  in  transferring  a  species  from  one 
genus  to  another,  the  specific  name  is  maintained.  The  strict 
nomenclaturists  have  contended  that,  in  accordance  with  the  idea 
that  priority  of  publication  alone  should  give  authority,  the  new- 
binomial  should  be  made  by  using  the  oldest  specific  name  com- 
mencing with  Linnaeus  Species  Plantarum,  1753,  and  for  generic  with 
