^6cfcPih9air9m-  )  Review  of  Advances  in  Pharmacy.  649 
A  REVIEW  OF  THE  ADVANCES  IN  PHARMACY. 
Br  John  K.  Thuji,  Ph.M., 
THE  LAXKENAU  HOSPITAL,  PHILADELPHIA. 
The  Decimal  System  in  Trade. — Under  the  caption  "Banish  the 
Dozen  System"  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  in  a  recent  issue 
strongly  advocates  the  use  of  the  decimal  system  in  trade.  The  drug 
trade  in  its  advocacy  of  the  metric  system  has  always  laid  great  stress 
on  the  fact  that  our  money  system  is  based  on  the  decimal :  this 
newspaper  also  brings  out  this  argument  to  buttress  its  plea.  We 
consider  this  editorial  so  peculiarly  apropos  that  we  would  feel  our- 
selves remiss  in  our  duty  to  the  profession  if  we  failed  to  quote  this 
timely  article : 
"  One  of  these  fine  days  a  person  may  go  to  a  store  and  ask  for  a 
dozen  eggs  and  be  told  eggs  and  other  things  no  longer  are  sold  by 
the  dozen  but  by  the  decimal  system. 
"  And  why  shouldn't  they  be  sold  that  way  ?  America  has  the 
decimal  money  system.   It  should  not  have  another  in  trade. 
"  There  is  as  much  confusion  in  the  systems  of  weights  and 
measures  as  there  is  confusion  in  languages.  The  British  have  a 
'  stone '  and  a  quarter.  How  many  Americans  know  what  these 
terms  signify?  The  British  also  have  a  farthing,  a  penny  (which  is 
equal  to  our  two  cents),  a  sovereign,  a  pound,  a  guinea  and  other 
measurements  of  money. 
"  No  system  is  so  simple  as  the  decimal.  This  fact  is  being  ap- 
preciated by  business  men.  The  rubber  companies  of  America  have 
adopted  it.  One  of  them,  writing  to  the  secretary  of  commerce, 
says : 
"  We  will  not  claim  the  honor  of  being  the  exact  pioneer  in  this  move- 
ment, as  it  was  agreed  among  all  rubber  companies  hereafter  to  price  every- 
thing in  the  unit  system,  and  our  factory  adopted  the  100-unit  as  a  price  basis. 
This  reduces  at  once  the  cost  of  a  single  article  by  moving  the  decimal  point 
two  figures  or,  in  other  words,  you  have  the  price  of  each  piece  of  goods  in  a 
single  unit  at  a  glance. 
"  The  Department  of  Commerce,  in  an  investigation  it  has  made, 
finds  the  decimal  gives  satisfaction  and  minimizes  mistakes,  as  units 
of  10,  50  and  100  are  more  easily  accounted  for  than  dozens,  and  the 
gross,  which  is  a  dozen  dozen.  The  company  whose  report  is  quoted 
packs  its  goods  in  lots  of  ten,  twenty-five,  fifty  and  100. 
