AFebr°uarrV^9aor6ra-}     The  U.S. P.  as  a  Legal  Standard.  81 
Latin?  A  few  pedants  might  have  protested,  but  the  Latin  of  the 
Pharmacopoeia  has  no  necessary  allegiance  to  the  language  of  Hor- 
ace and  Quintilian.  To  the  great  mass  of  pharmacists  and  physi- 
cians Latin  is  not  merely  a  dead  language,  it  is  a  decomposed  one. 
"  Sodium  chloridum  "  would  serve  as  well  as  "  sodii  chloridum." 
The  change  from  "  liquor  potassae  "  to  4<  liquor  potassii  hydroxidi  " 
represents  no  gain  in  applied  pharmacy ;  moreover,  the  revisors  are 
not  consistent ;  "  liquor  calcis  "  is  unchanged.  There  should  be  at 
least  a  method  in  the  madness  of  the  changes.  In  the  change  from 
acidum  arsenosum  to  arseni  hioxidum  a  step  has  been  made  from  one 
bad  form  to  another.  To  call  the  common  white  arsenic  the  tri- 
oxid  when  it  is  a  sesquioxid  is  to  add  confusion  to  chemical  nomen- 
clature. The  older  name  was  objectionable,  but  the  new  one  is  as 
much  so.  If  ferri  hydroxidum  is  acceptable,  why  should  not  arseni 
sesquioxidum  be  equally  so  ?  Even  arseni  oxidum  would  have  been 
better  than  the  given  name.  Such  a  non-committal  form  is  adopted 
in  the  case  of  the  iodid,  which  is  arsenous  iodid  and  is  called  sim- 
ply arseni  iodidum. 
The  introduction  of  many  articles  belonging  essentially  to  the 
category  of  crude  drugs  adds  unnecessarily  to  the  size  and  cost  of  the 
book.  The  items  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  should  be  limited  to  substances 
used  as  medicines,  which  will,  of  course,  include  external  as  well  as 
internal  remedies.  Materials  which  are  merely  used  for  extraction 
purposes,  for  tests  or  for  the  preparation  of  other  remedies  by  mere 
dilution,  need  not  be  enumerated.  Among  the  substances  which 
would  be  excluded  under  this  rule  are :  acetone,  acetic  acid  (glacial 
and  36  per  cent.),  strong  hydrochloric,  nitric  and  sulphuric^  nitrohy- 
drochloric,  nitric  and  sulphuric,  nitrohydrochloric  and  phosphoric 
acids,  oleic  acid,  absolute  alcohol,  stronger  ammonia,  water,  bromin, 
ferric  oxid  with  magnesia,  gun-cotton,  sublimed  sulphur,  crude  and 
purified  petroleum  benzin,  paraffin,  liquefied  phenol,  lead  nitrate, 
lead  iodid. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  control  of  the  purity  of  preparations  must 
be  attained  through  control  of  the  purity  of  the  original  materials, 
but  the  methods  of  the  pharmacist  can  never  go  to  the  first  condi- 
tion. He  will  always  rely  on  the  manufacturer  at  some  point,  and 
the  purity  of  a  preparation  can  be  as  well  controlled  in  the  prepara- 
tion itself  as  in  the  crude  source.  Under  "  diluted  sulphuric  acid  " 
it  is  stated  that  it  should  "  respond  to  the  reactions  and  tests  for 
