AmAp°rn;i89hoarm-}  New  System  of  Weights  and  Measures.  '  189 
working  pharmacist  that  its  adoption  is  desired,  and  the  road  to  its 
adoption  in  this  country  lies  through  the  recognition  of  the  gravi- 
metric system  for  solids  and  the  volumetric  system  for  liquids. 
Now,  in  the  face  of  this  national  feeling,  it  is  idle  to  continue  a 
system  which  has  failed  of  adoption,  and  it  seems  equally  undesir- 
able to  take  what  might  be  regarded  as  a  scientific  step  backwards, 
by  returning  to  the  empirical  system  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  1870. 
Further,  it  would  be  unwise  to  adopt  any  new  measures,  in  view  of 
the  undoubted  confusion  which  would  result  from  the  multiplicity 
of  measurements.  But,  what  is  needed  is  the  adoption  of  a  new 
system  of  old  measurements ;  a  system  exceedingly  simple,  easily 
divisible,  ready  of  application  in  any  drug  store  with  present  weights, 
and  representing  in  working  formulas  the  metric  system. 
If  we  examine  the  structure  of  the  metric  system  closely,  we  see 
that  its  scientific  strength  is  due  to  its  simplicity,  its  ready  divisi- 
bility, its  peculiar  relation  of  volume  to  mass,  or  rather  cubic  centi- 
meter to  gram,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  is  essentially  a  percentage 
system.  These  qualities  are  all  desirable  elements  and  any  system 
proposed  in  its  place  must  possess  them  in  an  eminent  degree,  and, 
in  addition,  be  so  framed  that  when  the  time  comes  for  the  adoption 
of  the  metric  system  by  the  American  pharmacist — and  it  will 
eventually  come — the  change  can  be  made  without  confusion. 
To  accomplish  this  would  demand  the  percentage  plan,  if  not  per- 
centage by  weight,  then  percentage  by  volume ;  it  would  demand 
that  there  be  few  weights  and  few  measures ;  it  would  demand  that 
the  standard  volume  should  hold  the  same  peculiar  relation  to  the 
standard  weight  that  the  cubic  centimeter  does  to  the  gram,  that  is, 
that  the  former  volume,  in  distilled  water  at  a  standard  tempera- 
ture and  pressure,  should  weigh  the  latter  weight. 
There  is  no  practice  more  firmly  entrenched  in  American 
pharmacy  than  the  use  of  the  grain  and  the  troy  ounce  for  weighing 
solids.  In  convenience,  ready,  fractional  division  and  general  use, 
they  are  pre-eminent.  'They  hold  the  same  intimate  relation  to 
practical  pharmacy  in  this  country  that  the  gram  and  kilo  hold 
upon  the  Continent.  If  then,  there  is  any  modification  of  the  troy 
system  adopted,  it  would  be  unwise  to  disturb  that  gravimetric 
portion  of  it. 
The  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  has  made  the  weight  of  its  fluid  ounce 
in  distilled  water  at  a  standard  temperature  and  pressure,  4557 
