ON DRUG-GRINDING. 
33 
sends damp jalap, containing fifteen per cent, of water, to 
be ground, and requires dry powder to be returned, with 
only four per cent, of deduction for loss, he adopts a con- 
ventional method of asking for some of the rinsing of the 
mill — a veritable " powder of post." 
The four per cent, system cannot fail, wherever it is adopt- 
ed, to induce a reduction in the strength of powdered 
drugs. If this reduction had tended to equalize thestrength 
of different specimens, there might have been some ex- 
cuse for it ; but the effect of the system must obviously be 
to cause a reduction in an inverse ratio to the previous 
strength of the drugs, so that the weakest and worst drugs 
will be most diluted. But this objection which applies to 
the very principle of the system, is not the most serious ob- 
jection to which it is subject. It sanctions the practice of 
admixture, and affords facilities for those who are disposed 
to pursue a ruinous competition in price at the sacrifice of 
quality. 
There are two causes which, I believe, principally tend 
to frustrate the efforts of those who are endeavoring to put 
a stop to the adulteration of drugs, and to provide for the 
supply of medicines of the best quality ; one is, the sale of 
cheap medicines by grocers and others not educated as 
Pharmaceutists, who are unable to distinguish the good 
from the bad, or indifferent as to which they sell; and the 
other is, the continuance, to whatever extent it may still 
prevail, of the four per cent, system in connexion with 
drug-grinding — a system which has no claim for support, 
save the old established usage of the trade. It should be 
the enlightened policy of an educated body of Pharmaceu- 
tists to afford a fair remuneration for honest industry ; and 
this being secured, both druggist and drug-grinder would 
rejoice to be relieved from the trammels which have been 
heedlessly and most injuriously ingrafted upon the system of 
drug-grinding. — Pharm. Journ. 
