The Pharmacopoeia and the U. S. Drug Law not in accord 2–3 Standard comparative dose of Opium and Morphia..... 3–4 Strength of Commercial moist Opium in New York market Strength of Commercial Powdered Opium in New York Standardized Opium and the Pharmacopoeia. Liquid Preparations of Opium of the Pharmacopœia.. Standards Recommended for the Pharmacopoeia. Relative cost of Opium to the Morphia contained.. Objections to a Standardized Opium.. Various Processes for Assaying Opium. Professor F. A. Flückiger's Process. OPIUM ASSAY-FLÜCKIGER'S PROCESS MODIFIED. AN EPHEMERIS OF MATERIA MEDICA, PHARMACY, THERAPEUTICS AND COLLATERAL INFORMATION. MARCH, 1882. BY EDWARD R. SQUIBB, M. D. EDWARD H. SQUIBB, S. B., M. D. CHARLES F. SQUIBB, A. B. BROOKLYN, N. Y. An apology may be due those to whom this pamphlet is sent, for even this very feeble attempt at starting a new journal, when the field of journalism is already so well filled. But a promise is made to the readers that if this new journal-undertaken with much hesitation and diffidence-should prove at any time to have no reason to be, it shall at once cease. As being a mere ephemeral waif, it will be sent gratuitously to all. No subscribers are solicited nor any subscription list kept, nor are exchanges with other journals asked for. It may be issued bi-monthly, or quarterly, or irregularly, or not at all, as the occupations of an otherwise very busy life may determine; and its chief object is, in an informal way, to note down, from time to time, the results of a long experience and observation and the deductions therefrom, together with occasional original work, as time and opportunity may serve. The contents should be accepted, if at all, as information-not as knowledge;-as material which may be of value only for the moment, or may mature and come to be added to the common stock of knowledge. Ephemerides are things of short life--for a definite or indefinite period, or for the time being, yet they may not be valueless nor be unimportant as elements in the growth of permanent knowledge. Indeed, they must, in their aggregate, bear an elementary relation to more permanent knowledge. An ephemeris of the materia medica, pharmacy and therapeutics seems to be a very pretentious, ostentatious title, but the subjects are so inseparably related as to form really but one intelligent idea, and that one still incomplete at both extremities. When such a collective subject has been the business of one lifetime, and becomes the expectancy of two other commencing lives edu. cated with special reference to the subject, it does not seem irrational to hope that information may be given which may be interesting and useful to the medical and pharmaceutical professions, since the subject is the very foundation upon which the utility of these professions to mankind depends. The younger associates in this undertaking may, perhaps, at first do but little of the writing, but they will do much of the work upon which the writing is to be based. To the professions of Medicine and Pharmacy, then, whatever may be here offered is respectfully dedicated by the writer and his two sons. EDWARD R. SQUIBB. Thermometers in general should be, to a moderate degree at least, instruments of precision, but that they are not so is becoming pretty generally known. Clinical thermometers are perhaps quite as untrustworthy as any, while from their short range their errors are more difficult to detect, and from their important uses these errors become serious defects. A good thermometer is a very valuable instrument, and is rather rare among the many thousands which are annually sold, but a poor one, like a false weight, is an abomination and a fraud, and, unfortunately, the appearance of the instrument is no indication of its true value, because the skill which finishes them well is of a kind very much cheaper and easier to get than that which adjusts their accuracy. Thousands of very goodlooking clinical thermometers are annually sold by the makers at one dollar to one dollar and a half each; but he who considers the care, skill, time and labor necessary to the principles involved in a fairly good thermometer, and who yet buys one of these, is simply buying his own folly and shortsightedness, and cheats himself quite as much as he is cheated by the seller. It would, however, be almost equally a mistake to buy clinical thermometers made with the skill and care requisite to accurate standard thermometers, because the sphere of error in the application and uses of clinical thermometers is so much greater than in the use of very fine instruments that it would be like paying for an assay balance on which to weigh flour or sugar. The aim should be A portion of this note was read at the recent annual meeting of the Medical Society of the State of New York. |