292 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
tain remedies have been designated, wherein the same 
substance is capable of yielding different results, as it may- 
be treated in one way or another. Here the different for- 
mulae are all given with an expressive title indicating pre- 
cisely the character of the result in each. Thus, we have the 
" Extract of Hemlock, with or without fecula," " Extract of 
Opium, with or without narcotine, prepared by wine or water, 
&c." With such a precision of terms, it is impossible that 
any difficulty can ever occur between the prescnber and 
dispenser of medicines, as to the particular remedy which is 
required; and the pharmaceutist is relieved of the responsible 
embarrassment which so frequently attends the discharge of 
his duties in this country, where no kind of precision in 
terms is customary. We have frequently known the blue 
mass, or Pil. hydrargyri of the Pharmacopoeia, indicated by 
the term Oxid. hydrarg. nig.; Vinum colchici, ordered without 
any means of distinguishing whether the wine of the seed or 
root of colchicum was required; and Solut. sulph. morphiae 
employed indiscriminately to indicate the powerfully strong 
solution of Magendie and the moderate solution of the United 
States Pharmacopoeia. Evils of the worst character must 
flow from such want of precision in terms, and it is, perhaps, 
one of the strongest reasons for proving the necessity of a 
despotic control of the whole subject by government, whose 
mandates may be enforced by pains and penalties, to be suf- 
fered by those who neglect its laws and ordinances. 
After having maturely reflected upon the subject, the able 
committee, to which the revision and publication of the Codex 
was entrusted, determined that it should be published in the 
vernacular tongue, notwithstanding that the Latin language 
offered the advantage of being universally understood among 
civilized nations. But they arrived at the determination to 
employ the French, because the use of the work being espe- 
cially designed for France, it ought, in their opinion, to be 
so written that it might present the greatest and most enlarged 
practical advantages, which could only be affected by so ex- 
pressing its terms that no doubt could possibly arise in the 
