AmAugust,Pi905rm*}  Eighth  Decennial  Revision  of  Pharmacopoeia.  367 
have  been  included  as  a  guide  and  for  general  information  to  physi- 
cians and  pharmacists. 
Powdered  Drugs. — The  motion,  adopted  on  the  second  day  of  the 
Pharmacopceial  Convention,  "  That  the  Committee  on  Revision  be 
requested  to  consider  the  advisability  of  treating  the  subject  of  pow- 
dered drugs  in  the  text  of  the  Pharmacopoeia,"  has  received  but  in- 
different attention,  so  that  in  this  one  particular  at  least,  the  present 
edition  of  the  U.S.P.  is  decidedly  behind  the  latest  edition  of  the 
German  Pharmacopoeia,  published  more  than  five  years  ago. 
This  action  is  the  more  unfortunate  as  the  practice  of  supplying 
ground  and  powdered  drugs  probably  originated  and  is  certainly 
more  generally  followed  in  this  than  in  any  other  country  in  the 
world. 
Standard  Dropper. — Another  motion,  also  considered  on  the  sec- 
ond day  of  the  Convention,  recommending  the  adoption  of  a  stand- 
ard medicine  dropper,  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Revision 
without  recommendations.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Interna- 
tional Conference  for  the  Unification  of  Potent  Medicaments  adopted 
practically  the  same  description  for  a  dropper,  and  the  same  approxi- 
mate equivalent  for  the  size  and  weight  of  a  drop  of  water,  it  does 
appear  more  than  passing  strange  that  the  members  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Revision,  should  have  ignored  the  subject  entirely. 
Atomic  Weights. — The  decision  of  the  committee  to  adopt  the  so- 
called  didactic  standard  of  atomic  weights  (H  =  1)  in  place  of  the 
international  or  practical  (O  =  16)  is  to  be  deplored,  particularly 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  pharmacist  or  the  practical  chemist, 
who  can  have  little  or  no  interest  in  the  abstract  principles  involved 
in  teaching  the  theory  of  chemical  philosophy. 
The  practical  reasons  for  adopting  oxygen  =  16  as  the  basis  of 
the  atomic  weights  in  a  work  of  this  kind  have  been  recounted  in 
this  Journal  so  recently  (Amer.  Jour.  Pharm.,  1902,  pp.  153,  231) 
that  there  is  but  little  necessity  for  going  over  this  ground  again. 
A  pharmacopoeia  is,  or  rather  should  be,  above  all  a  practical  book 
for  every-day  work,  and  any  feature  that  will  in  any  way  contribute 
to  facilitate  the  necessary  calculations  connected  with  the  estimation 
of  the  amount  of  a  certain  elementary  body  in  any  given  combina- 
tion, should  be  accepted  without  question.  In  addition  to  this, 
chemists  who  are  actively  engaged  in  industrial  or  analytical  work 
the  world  over  are  using  O  =  16  as  the  basis  of  their  calculations 
