BRITISH AND UNITED STATES PHARMACOPOEIAS. 199 
the mode of proceeding; the necessity is obvious for the trans- 
lation into English of all the Latin titles of substances, &c, 
thus enumerated. A large majority of the names of the me- 
dicinal substances being thus necessarily rendered into Eng- 
lish in the body of the work, there seems to be an obvious 
propriety of rendering them all in the same language, and, at 
the same time, in a uniform manner. The framers of a 
Pharmacopoeia printed in English, recognising the necessity 
of English names by their employment to a partial extent, 
might well adopt them universally; and doing so, the 
propriety would naturally present itself of selecting them ac- 
cording to a system, and adhering to them invariably. Such 
a system of names might be called the English Officinal 
names, as having the sanction of the authors of the Pharma- 
copoeia. 
Such being our views, we shall proceed to make a few re- 
marks on the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, in relation to its use 
of English names. These names are used in the Materia 
Medica list, in the body of the different formulae, and in the 
Index. The Latin titles of the different preparations are not 
given in English at the head of the formulae, but are rendered 
into English in the Index, and whenever the preparations 
themselves happen to be placed in the Materia Medica list, 
or enumerated in the various formulae. In this way all the 
Latin names are translated, sometimes in the Index alone, 
sometimes in the Index and Materia Medica list, and at other 
times, in both these and the body of the formulae also. It is 
certainly an unusual course that the Index should contain 
English names, referring to certain pages at which those 
names are not to be found, but only the Latin titles, of which 
they are the translations. But this defect might be overlooked, 
if the English names for the same substance were uniform. 
Unfortunately, this is not the case; for we have, in nu- 
merous instances, several English names to express the same 
article. 
In proof of this we shall give a few examples: — Aloe bar- 
badensis is called Barbadoes aloes in the Materia Medica, 
