Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
July,  1888.  j 
Reference  Table  of  Doses. 
341 
REFERENCE  TABLE  OF  DOSES.^ 
By  Joseph  W.  England,  Ph.  G. 
Without  doubt  one  of  the  greatest  needs  in  the  coming  revision  of 
our  national  guide-book  on  Pharmacy — the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia — is 
the  presence  of  a  carefully  constructed  table  of  doses  founded  upon  a 
general  average  of  different  authorities. 
Authorities  vary  greatly  in  their  statements  of  dosage.  Indeed,  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  find  two  who  exactly  agree  in  any  large  num- 
ber of  drugs,  so  that  the  physician  and  the  pharmacist,  on  reference  to 
them  for  information,  are  often  exceedingly  puzzled  as  to  which  of  the 
conflicting  and  widely  varying  statements  to  accept. 
Whilst  this  need  is  an  undeniable  one,  the  expediency  of  inserting 
doses  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  is  questioned.  The  main  arguments  urged 
are,  that  it  would  make  the  work  authoritative  in  that  direction, 
bring  it  into  courts  as  evidence,  and  subject  it  to  endless  fault-finding ; 
and  the  case  of  the  British  Pharmacopoeia,  which,  in  the  last  issue, 
inserted  the  dose  with  each  drug,  is  cited  as  evidence  in  support  of 
these  assertions.  The  first  claim  is  no  argument  at  all.  The  great 
need  for  authoritative  decisions  on  this  subject  is  ample  warrant  for 
our  Revision  Committee  to  assume  that  responsibility,  in  addition  to 
other  equally  responsible  ones  which  they  have  assumed  and  dis- 
charged satisfactorily  in  the  past.  The  argument  that  it  would  invite 
adverse  criticism  is  fallacious,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  experiences  of  our 
Dispensatories,  which,  whilst  they  do  not  give  tables,  devote  consider- 
able space  under  each  drug  to  statements  concerning  its  dosage. 
Relative  to  the  insertion  of  doses  in  the  British  Pharmacopoeia,  the 
reason  for  their  failure  to  meet  popular  approval  seems  much  more 
probably  resident  in  the  method  of  dosage  expression  and  lack  of 
accuracy,  than  in  the  fact  of  their  insertion,  as  may  be  evidenced  by 
a  critical  examination  of  that  work.  For  example,  the  dose  of  the 
officinal  quinine  salts  is  stated  to  be  from  1  to  10  grains,  whilst  here 
tonic  doses  are  1-3-5  grains,  and  antipyretically  used,  5-15,  and  even 
SO  grains  is  nothing  unusual.  Strychnine  is  stated  to  be  from  the 
Tijth  to  the  T2tli  of  a  grain,  whilst  the  range  is  much  more  generally 
from  the  wjth  to  the  sVd  to  the  ^?th  of  a  grain  ;  maximum,  ^th  to 
T^th  to  xVth  of  a  grain. 
^Read  before  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Association  at  Titusville, 
June  13. 
