i66 
Official  and  Officinal. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      April,  1875. 
officinal  (Fr.  from  L.  officina^  a  shop)  but  not  official.  To  restrict  the 
word  officinal  to  the  contents  of  a  pharmacist's  shop,  and  to  that  portion 
of  the  contents  which  is  pharmacopoeial,  is  radically  wrong,  and  should 
be  avoided.  An  official  formula  is  one  given  under  authority.  An 
officinal  formula  is  one  made  in  obedience  to  the  customary  usage  of  the 
shop  [officina).  To  state  that  any  preparation  under  the  sanction  of  the 
Pharmacopoeia  is  officinal,  is  a  misapprehension  of  the  word." — Brough 
— Note  to  "  Attfield's  Chemistry,"  5th  ed.,  p.  25. 
l^he  question  of  adopting  the  words  official  and  officinal  as  defined 
above  was,  at  the  last  meeting,  referred  to  me  for  examination,  accord- 
ing to  the  Minutes  of  our  worthy  Registrar. 
With  all  due  deference  to  the  authority  of  Prof.  Attfield,  I  regret  that 
my  investigation  of  this  subject  does  not  lead  me  to  his  conclusions. 
The  chief  arguments  against  the  introduction  of  the  innovation  that 
occurred  to  me,  are  the  following  : 
ist.  The  difference  in  the  meaning  of  the  two  words  is  conventional 
rather  than  radical,  as  they  are  both  derived  from  the  same  root,  namely, 
opus^  work,  and  facio^  to  do  or  make.  The  distinction  is,  therefore, 
purely  arbitrary,  necessitating  a  definition  in  each  case.  The  similarity 
of  these  words  is,  in  fact,  so  great,  that  it  is  likely  to  lead  to  their  con- 
stant confusion. 
2d.  The  term  unofficinal  has  by  usage  become  well  established  in  th^s 
country,  and  its  signification  is  thoroughly  understood  by  all  pharm- 
acists. If  we  retain  officinal  in  the  sense  in  which  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  use  it,  unofficinal  will  continue  to  designate  definitely  and 
unequivocally  those  drugs  and  preparations  that  are  not  recognized  by 
the  Pharmacopceia.  But  if  we  adopt  official^  then  the  word  officinal 
will  of  necessity  mean  precisely  that  which  we  now  call  unofficinal. 
Our  Committee  on  unofficinal  formulas  will  advance  in  title  to  one  on 
officinal  formulas.  Endless  confusion  must  result  for  years  to  come 
from  such  a  mingling  and  substitution  of  terms,  so  that  it  might  prove 
to  be  the  wisest  course  to  abandon  the  use  of  both  words  entirely. 
3d.  Both  terms,  or  their  equivalents,  exist  in  German,  French, 
Spanish,  Swedish  and  other  continental  languages.  To  the  best  of  my 
knowledge,  officinal  is,  in  every  instance,  applied  in  the  American 
acceptation,  without  having  so  far  given  offence  to  the  scholars  of  those 
nations. 
4th.  The  word  officinal  as  used  by  us  at  present  agrees  with  our 
Pharmacopoeia,  and  does  not  conflict  with  our  standard  dictionaries, 
