A  SUBSTITUTE  FOR  TAR  BEER. 
13 
region  under  the  influence  of  the  objecting  College,  still  it  would 
be  merely  surplusage  to  such  College;  while  it  might  be  necessary 
to  meet  the  wants  of  the  physicians  in  the  region  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  advocating  College.  The  prejudices  and  conflicting 
interests,  shadowed  forth  in  these  remarks,  would  make  it  extremely 
difficult,  not  to  say  impossible,  to  get  the  British  Colleges  to  agree 
on  all  points  in  relation  to  a  common  standard.  The  most  that  could 
be  expected  from  them,  would  be  to  settle  the  general  principles 
of  the  work,  and  to  take  some  steps  of  detail  in  the  right  direction. 
To  make  a  final  disposition  of  the  subject,  it  would,  no  doubt,  be 
necessary  that  the  law  should  interpose ;  and  that,  by  authority  of 
an  act  of  parliament,  a  commission  of  eminent  men  should  be 
clothed  with  full  power  to  dispose  of  all  outstanding  questions,  and 
to  complete  the  desired  standard.  If  a  course,  somewhat  like  that 
here  indicated,  were  taken*  the  advantage  would  accrue  to  medical 
science  of  having  not  merely  one,  instead  of  three  British  Phar- 
macopoeias; but  of  having  the  elaborated  work  incomparably 
superior  to  those  it  would  supersede.  Many  anomalies  and  incon- 
sistencies of  British  pharmacy  would  disappear  ;  dangerous  varia- 
tions in  the  strength  of  officinal  solutions  of  the  salts  of  morphia 
would  no  longer  exist;  and  those  glaring  defects  in  nomenclature, 
consisting  in  calling  the  same  preparation  by  different  names,  and 
different  preparations  by  the  same  name,  would  be  removed.  Our 
national  Pharmacopoeia  would  feel  the  benefit  of  such  a  reform; 
for,  without  doubt,  if  such  a  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  British  empire 
were  published,  all  the  new  and  valuable  parts  of  it  would  be  in- 
corporated into  our  national  standard  on  its  next  revision  in  1860. 
Nor  is  this  all.  Our  physicians  and  medical  students  would  feel 
the  benefit  of  the  reform.  British  medical  works  would  employ  a 
uniform  nomenclature  for  medicines  ;  and  our  Dispensatories  would 
be  relieved  from  a  number  of  discordant  formulas,  and  from  a  load 
of  useless  synonymes,  which  at  present  form  a  most  discouraging 
obstruction  to  the  progress  of  the  student. 
ON  A  SUBSTITUTE  FOR  TAR  BEER, 
By  B.  J.  Crew. 
Having,  in  common  with  many  Pharmaceutists,  experienced  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  procuring  at  once  both  a  neat  and  reliable 
