Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1890. 
Editorials. 
271 
not  to  be  viewed  as  an  experiment  as  would  be  such  modifications  of  our  present 
forms  as  have  been  proposed  by  some  individual  enthusiasts  and  which  have 
received  but  little  consideration  by  any  but  their  inventors. 
The  argument  that  our  system  of  weights  and  measures  is  the  same  as  that 
in  use  in  Great  Britain,  with  whom  we  have  most  intercourse,  is  without 
foundation.  The  system  we  use  is  well  called  the  American  system,  for  no 
other  nation  uses  it.  The  Troy  pound  has  been  abolished  in  Great  Britain, 
and  no  longer  appears  in  their  text  books  and  the  fluid  measures  are  different 
in  the  proportion  of  4  to  5. 
If  identity  is  to  be  preserved  between  our  measures  and  those  of  any  other 
nation,  some  change  must  be  made,  and  we  believe  there  is  substantial 
unanimity  in  a  preference  for  the  metric  system  as  in  place  of  our  old  system 
if  any  change  is  made. 
It  is  wholly  unnecessary  to  defer  the  adoption  of  this  much-needed  reform 
until  the  prejudices,  fallacious  arguments,  or  educational  deficiencies  mani- 
fested by  a  large  contingent  of  pharmacists  and  physicians  shall  have  been 
overcome.  Such  a  period  must  necessarily  be  remote,  and  indefinite,  while 
the  method  herein  proposed  avoids  any  delay.  The  difficulty  of  securing  any 
change  on  the  part  Of  men  already  in  active  business  is  well  shown  by  the  fact, 
that  the  simple  innovation  in  the  present  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  of  expressing 
quantities  in  parts  by  weight,  demonstrates  how  large  a  number  of  pharmacists 
are  incapable  of  comprehending  so  simple  a  relationship  when  applied  to  the 
complicated  empirical  and  antiquated  systems  of  weights  and  measures  in 
present  use. 
One  of  the  principal  reasons  why  the  metric  system  has  not  yet  been  adopted 
in  this  country  by  professional  men,  is  the  indifference  shown  by  our  profes- 
sional schools.  Every  student  of  medicine  and  pharmacy  is  practically  obliged 
to  learn  a  system  of  weights  and  measures  new  to  him  when  he  begins  profes- 
sional study.  He  may  have  learned  the  Apothecary  tables  in  his  school  days, 
but  he  has  not  used  them,  and  as  elements  of  thought  the  grain  and  drachm 
are  entirely  new  to  him.  If  the  gram  and  cubic  centimeter  are  substituted  for 
them,  no  additional  labor  is  entailed  upon  the  student.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed at  the  present  time,  that  professors  who  are  really  competent,  are 
ignorant  of  this  system,  and  hence  this  change  would  not  entail  any  additional 
labor  on  the  professors.  In  fact  it  would  diminish  the  labor,  of  both  professors 
and  students,  for  in  medical  schools  at  the  present  time,  instruction  is  given 
in  both  systems,  and  it  would  simply  make  the  methods  of  instruction  uniform 
in  the  chairs  of  materia  medica,  pharmacy  and  chemistry,  where  now  is  a 
confusion. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  does  not  now  recognize  the  Troy  system,  and  if  the 
doses  were  taught  in  metric  terms  only,  the  old  system  would  die  out  with  the 
passing  off  of  the  present  generation  of  practitioners.  No  inconvenience 
would  be  caused  to  any  one,  those  who  are  too  old  to  learn,  could  go  on  using 
their  present  mode,  and  the  new  graduates  would  use  that  which  they  are 
taught. 
It  should  be  particularly  remembered  that  we  are  not  trying  to  introduce  a 
new  system,  but  to  drop  an  old  one,  which  is  as  irrational  and  unscientific  as 
any  other  relic  of  barbarism.    It  is  especially  opportune  at  this  time  when  a 
