360  Pharmacy  of  British  Pharmacopoeia.    {Am^°u£  S™" 
THE  PHARMACY  AND  MATERIA  MEDICA  OF  THE 
BRITISH  PHARMACOPOEIA  OF  1914.1 
By  George  M.  Beringer. 
The  appearance  of  a  revised  pharmacopoeia  of  one  of  the  lead- 
ing nations  is  an  event  of  general  pharmaceutical  interest.  The  im- 
portance of  such  a  revision  from  an  American  viewpoint  is  greatly 
enhanced  if  the  pharmacopoeia  revised  is  that  of  a  nation  whose 
consanguinity,  language,  and  practices  are  so  closely  allied  to  our 
own  as  are  those  of  the  British  Isles.  Hence  the  appearance  of  a 
new  British  Pharmacopoeia  during  the  past  year  becomes  one  of 
the  most  important  pharmaceutical  events. 
It  is  apparent  that  any  attempt  to  review  the  pharmacy  and  materia 
medica  of  the  Fifth  Edition  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  within 
the  time  allotted  for  a  paper  presented  to  a  pharmaceutical  meeting, 
must  necessarily  be  cursory  and  incomplete.  Moreover,  one  is  too 
prone  to  consider  the  volume  from  the  viewpoint  of  American  prac- 
tice, without  realizing  what  has  been  the  aim  of  the  Medical  Council 
and  which,  in  the  following  statement  in  the  preface,  they  claim  to 
have  accomplished :  "  Has  now  been  able  to  produce  a  British  Phar- 
macopoeia suitable  for  the  whole  Empire.''  This  statement  indicates 
to  what  extent  that  ideal  of  the  British  Government,  the  solidarity 
of  all  of  the  people  of  the  numerous  divisions  of  the  British  Empire, 
has  progressed.  The  present  edition  displaces  not  only  the  edition 
of  1898,  but  also  the  Indian  and  Colonial  Addenda  of  1900.  The 
dismissal  in  the  revision  of  so  many  of  the  drugs  used  exclusively,  or 
nearly  so,  in  the  Oriental  British  possessions  indicates  the  advance- 
ment of  the  movement  for  uniformity  of  medical  standards  and 
practice  throughout  the  British  Empire. 
In  this  revision  the  Medical  Council  departed  somewhat  from 
the  methods  of  the  previous  revisions  and  sought  the  cooperation 
of  pharmaceutical,  chemical,  and  botanical  authorities  by  instituting 
conferences  and  committees  on  reference,  and  thus  aimed  to  obtain 
information,  advice,  and  investigation  from  many  experts  outside  of 
the  Council. 
In  this  revision  the  metric  system  of  weights  and  measures  is 
1  Presented  at  the  meeting  of  the  New  Jersey  Pharmaceutical  Association 
Spring  Lake,  N.  ].,  June  15-18,  1915- 
