BRITISH AND UNITED STATES PHARMACOPOEIAS. 209 
with a little axunge; and then add axunge till it amounts al- 
together to five times the weight of the kernels." This oint- 
ment is said to be one of the best applications for ring-worm 
of the scalp. 
The list we have given of the additions to the Ed. Phar- 
macopoeia shows a goodly number of new pills. These are 
generally useful combinations; but the majority of them should 
have been left to extemporaneous prescription. Where sub- 
stances are combined in various proportions by the best prac- 
titioners, it is hardly necessary to make one proportion offi- 
cinal. In the second revised edition, all the ingredients of 
pills are given in parts by weight instead of fixed weights, a 
change which facilitates the operations of the apothecary. The 
weight of the pills into which the mass is to be divided, is 
generally indicated in the formula, but sometimes left to the 
discretion of the prescribe?. The formulas for tinctures are 
also considerably altered in this edition. In both editions 
the improvement of making many of them by the me- 
thod of displacement is adopted, though the alternative of the 
old method is given. This improvement is also adopted in 
the U.S. Pharmacopoeia of 1842. 
The new Ed. Pharmacopoeia presents the improvement of 
short notes to many of the substances, included both in the 
Materia Medica and the preparations, detailing their qualities 
when genuine, and the tests by which they may be known to 
be so. This plan was adopted in 1836 by the London College, 
at the suggestion, as it appears, of the Edinburgh College, but is 
carried out more fully by the latter body. This good example 
has been followed in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia of 1842. The 
notes of the Edinburgh College are generally satisfactory. They 
are all embraced within the pages of the Materia Medica list; 
so that when a " preparation" has a note, its name is inserted 
in this list with its note appended. This causes what is called 
the Materia Medica list to contain more than it professes to 
embrace, and leads to a needless repetition of officinal names. 
The arrangement would have been better if the notes to the 
