270 
Editorials. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I        May,  1890. 
Pharmacopceial  Weights  and  Measures.— The  following  circular  explains 
itself,  and  deserves  the  careful  unbiassed  consideration  of  every  pharmacist 
and  physician.  It  is  addressed  to  the  professions  of  medicine  and  pharmacy, 
and  the  medical  and  pharmaceutical  colleges  of  the  Unites  States  and  Canada  : 
At  the  last  meeting  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  held  at  Toronto,  Can.,  September,  1889,  the  undersigned  were 
appointed  a  committee  to  promote  the  use  of  the  metric  system  of  weights  and 
measures  among  professional  men,  and  especially  to  secure  its  more  general 
adoption  by  the  physicians  and  pharmacists  and  the  chemical  and  pharmaceu- 
tical manufacturers  of  our  country. 
The  metric  weights  and  measures  were  legalized  in  this  country  by  Congress 
in  1866,  and  are  now  in  actual  use  by  most  students  of  natural  history,  by  some 
scientific  periodicals,  by  the  graduates  of  our  schools  of  civil  and  mining  engi- 
neering, and  especially  by  all  scientists  and  chemists  throughout  the  world, 
without  regard  to  their  mother  tongue.  It  is  nevertheless  greatly  to  be  regretted 
that  a  large  majority  of  our  physicians,  pharmacists  and  druggists  still  continue 
to  ignore  its  merits  or  discountenance  its  adoption. 
The  merits  of  the  metric  system  have  been  so  thoroughly  recognized  that  it 
is  adopted  by  most  civilized  nations.  Further  argument  should  be  unnecessary 
to  secure  its  universal  adoption  in  our  hemisphere,  where  it  is  already  in  exclu- 
si  ;e  use  by 'all  the  states  of  Southern  and  Central  America. 
It  is  a  strange  and  irreconcilable  fact,  that  the  Governments  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  or  the  English-speaking  peoples,  should  stand  quite 
alone  in  their  stubborn  and  persistent  adherence  to  the  use  of  heterogeneous 
standards  of  weights  and  measures,  completely  devoid  of  system  in  themselves, 
or  of  an)'  practical  and  rational  relationship  to  each  other.  And  it  is  especially 
strange,  in  view  of  the  practical  utility  of  the  metric  system,  that  the  profes- 
sions of  medicine  and  pharmacy  in  this  country  should  in  this  respect  at  the 
present  time,  be  behind  the  various  arts  of  engineering,  as  must  be  conceded 
by  those  familiar  with  the  facts. 
This  condition  of  things  is  not  due  to  any  inherent  defects  in  the  system 
itself,  but  to  indolence  and  a  want  of  practical  acquaintance  with  the  metric 
system  w-hich  largely  amounts  to  positive  ignorance,  that  is  unjustifiable,  since 
it  hinders  the  proper  assimilation  of  the  great  mass  of  scientific  literature  in 
which  the  system  is  exclusively  used,  tends  to  increase  the  risk  of  errors  in  our 
professional  work  and  imposes  much  unnecessary  labor  on  the  student. 
The  educated  representatives  of  medicine  and  pharmacy  in  this  country 
favor  and  would  gladly  adopt  the  metric  system,  but  find  their  efforts  in  this 
direction  constantly  hampered  and  nullified  by  the  opposition  of  a  large  number 
of  both  professions  who,  through  conservatism  or  lack  of  education,  fail  to  unite 
in  any  concerted  effort  for  its  more  general  adoption  and  use. 
It  is  unnecessary  here  to  expatiate  on  the  advantages  of  the  metric  system  of 
weights  and  measures.  The  identity  of  the  single  factor  with  our  system  of 
numeration,  the  perfect  correspondence  between  measures  of  weight  and 
capacity,  its  approval  by  a  large  majority  of  the  nations  of  the  world,  and 
especially  its  actual  use  by  scientists  and  chemists  without  exception,  render  its 
ultimate  adoption  by  all  arts  dependent  on  natural  sciences  and  especially  by 
medicine  and  pharmacy,  a  matter  of  necessity  and  certainty.    Its  adoption  is 
