306  Convention  for  Revision  of  the  U.  S.  P.  {AmjJu°^';Sanu- 
(10)  Weights  and  Measures. — It  is  recommended  that  the  next  Committee 
of  Revision  be  instructed  to  direct  solids  to  be  weighed  and  liquids  to  be  meas- 
ured, except  in  such  cases  as  the  Committee  may  find  advisable,  and  that  the 
metric  system  be  employed  for  that  purpose. 
(n)  General  Formulas. — It  is  recommended  that  general  formulas  be  intro- 
duced for  fluid  extracts  and  such  other  preparations  as  have  duplicate  processes, 
and  that  the  general  formula  to  be  followed  in  any  particular  case  be  merely 
indicated  by  reference. 
(12)  List  of  Reagents,  Tables,  etc. — The  tables  and  list  of  reagents  author- 
ized or  prescribed  for  the  Pharmacopceia  of  18S0  shall  also  be  inserted  in  that 
of  1S90,  with  such  corrections  or  substitutions  as  may  be  required  to  bring 
them  up  to  date. 
(13)  Publication  of  the  Pharmacopoeia. — It  is  recommended  that  the  Com- 
mittee of  Revision,  etc.,  which  will  be  elected  by  the  Convention  of  1890,  be 
authorized  to  print  and  publish,  on  its  own  account,  the  Seventh"  Decennial 
Revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
1 14)  Date  for  the  Pharmacopoeia  to  go  into  effect. — The  Committee  shall 
announce  in  a  conspicuous  place,  in  the  printed  work,  a  definite  date,  reason- 
ably distant  from  the  actual  date  of  publication,  when  the  new  Pharmacopceia 
is  intended  to  go  into  effect,  and  to  supersede  the  preceding  one. 
(15 )  Compensation  of  Experts. — It  is  recommended  that  the  Convention  of 
1890  instruct  the  Committee  of  Revision,  etc.,  to  pay  the  experts  and  others 
employed  in  the  preparation  and  publication  of  the  Seventh  Decennial  Revision 
of  the  Pharmacopceia. 
The  discussion  on  these  propositions,  as  might  be  expected,  consumed  much 
time,  and  in  regard  to  some  of  them  the  views  were  extremely  divergent. 
This  was  more  particularly  the  case  with  propositions  2,  3,  4  and  10,  of  which 
the  former  three  embrace  the  question  of  standardization  ;  these  after  a  lengthy 
debate  were  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Revision  without  special  instruction, 
after  the  word  usual  had  been  inserted  in  the  second  section  in  place  of  the 
word  average.    It  will  be  observed  that  2  and  3  are  not  mandatory. 
Proposition  11  was  modified  by  the  addition  of  the  words  italicized  above, 
apparently  with  the  view  of  giving  the  direction  a  wider  application. 
When  the  13th  proposition  was  under  consideration,  an  amendment  was 
offered  by  Mr.  Schafer,  of  Iowa,  that  the  publication  of  the  next  Pharmacopceia 
be  entrusted  to  a  separate  Committee  of  Five,  the  better  to  secure  the  entire 
profits  expected  to  accrue  from  the  sale  of  the  work.  The  amendment,  how- 
ever, was  voted  down,  as  was  also  a  substitute  offered  by  Prof.  Remington,  with 
the  object  of  making  the  instructions  to  the  Committee  still  more  definite  than 
contained  in  the  original  draft  which  was  finally  adopted. 
Proposition  to  had  been  postponed  until  the  fourth  session  held  on  Thursday 
forenoon,  when  Prof.  Mendenhall,  upon  invitation,  addressed  the  Convention 
upon  the  subject  of  weights  and  measures  and  showed  that  those  in  use  in  the 
United  States— with  the  exception  of  the  metric  system— were  never  legalized 
by  Congress,  but  were  adopted  by  regulation  of  one  of  the  departments,  and  in 
several  states  by  local  legislation.  He  explained  also  the  construction  of  the 
metric  standards  as  now  in  the  possession  of  the  different  governments,  and 
showed  models  of  those  recently  received  from  France. 
