had long ceased to be the language of every other branch of medical science and art throughout Europe. But the medical public, practitioners no less than druggists, chose to have the book in the vernacular; and, accordingly, unauthorised English translations, supplanting the Latin original, doomed it to become a permanent load on the shelves of the publisher. Thus it has happened, that the character of the Colleges, the progress of pharmacy, and the convenience of the medical profession, have necessarily been all sacrificed to the more direct interests of a bibliopole.

From these trammels the College of Edinburgh, setting an example to its neighbours, freed itself in 1839 ; and the consequence was, that a reprint of the first English Pharmacopoeia was called for in the short space of two years. The Dublin College has now followed the same course, having apparently no fear that its scholarship will be called in question, because it declines any longer to publish its ordinances in what is at best but a semi-barbarous Latin. The London College in 1836 observed a middle course. The custom of two centuries and a-half was not to be abruptly departed from there. But the chemist, whom it could not find within its own body to get up its pharmacopoeia, was encouraged, or allowed, to bring out almost simultaneously an English and commented edition. No little curiosity must be naturally felt as to the intention of the College in this respect, with the "New Pharmacopoeia, which is prepared, but is not yet published." The less austere influence, which may be expected to move its greatly changed constituency in 1851, ought to enable it to throw aside the remains of a monkish prejudice. And if it has not already done so, what may not be looked for from the frank example now set by its sister in Dublin?

The adoption of an English version is not the only radical change in the Dublin Pharmacopoeia of 1850. The College has also boldly ventured on another, not less difficult to adopt, and much more so to carry into execution.

It is well known that when the legislature mercilessly overthrew in 1826 the innumerable incongruous weights and measures used in various trades throughout these realms, it spared the goldsmith and the apothecary, and left them to their own devices. The latter has taken ample advantage of the license. Following substantially his ancient usage, he dispenses his drugs with a scruple of 20 grains, a drachm of 60, an ounce of 480, and a pound of 12 such ounces; while the grocer, butcher, baker, and all other tradesmen, except the goldsmith, use a drachm of 27 grains, an ounce of 437, and a pound which, containing sixteen such ounces, is about a fifth heavier than that of the apothecary. But this is by no means all. If the apothecary's weights could have been rigorously followed in the practice of pharmacy, and all others prohibited, as the London College in the exercise of its stringent prerogatives at one time attempted to do, no very great inconvenience perhaps

might have been felt, except by the scientific chemist, who would necessarily be always impeded in his course by a double set of weights, whenever he had occasion to enter within the confines of medicine. The apothecary, however, could not be restricted to the use of his own weights. He must buy from the wholesale dealer, manufacturer, or merchant, by the imperial weights. He must therefore possess imperial weights to check his purchases; and thus he introduces into his establishment a palpable source of error and abuse. One singular abuse has consequently arisen. If a physician send his patient to a druggist for an ounce of Epsom salt or cinchona bark, without a prescription, the druggist supplies him with an imperial ounce of 437 grains. But if he carry with him a prescription, say for a solution of Epsom salt with a few drops of sulphuric acid, the druggist in that case uses his apothecary's ounce of 480 grains. As for errors arising from two systems of weights being kept in the same establishment, the conscience of the apothecary's or druggist's apprentice can alone tell their amount; because, fortunately, the difference between the two systems of weights, as to the value of the denominations chiefly used, is not such as to entail a very appreciable difference of effect upon the patient.

Impressed by these irregularities, and encouraged by the opinion of some of the most experienced retail druggists in Edinburgh, the College of that city in 1839 declared itself as having "never been able to see the force of those objections which prevented the introduction of the imperial system of weights into the practice of medicine and pharmacy, on the occasion of the late reform in the national weights and measures" (Edin Pharm., 1839, Preface, p. 12). But the College resisted the temptation to innovate on so radical a point, being withheld by unwillingness to introduce a new element of contention into the negotiations, which, there was some reason to hope, might be renewed between all the colleges for agreeing together in adopting an imperial pharmacopoeia. The Dublin College has had no such check on its proceedings; for every hope of beholding a conjunct pharmacopoeia, for at least a long time to come, must have ceased in every quarter. Accordingly, the new Dublin Pharmacopoeia, discarding the ancient weights of the druggist, adopts those of other trades,-with the single difference, that, instead of the imperial drachm of 273 grains, a new drachm is invented of twice that amount, or 54, grains, so as to correspond more nearly with the old apothecary's drachm of 60 grains.

The College has already been assailed for this innovation. But the only objection hitherto made is not likely to breed much repentance on its part. A London druggist of repute complains, that in England there is "no means of correctly representing the Irish drachm and scruple in dispensing, without having new weights made; which would be objectionable on account of the additional complication it would introduce into our system

of weights" (Pharm. Journ. and Trans., December 1850, p. 273). The practical difficulty here is not to be denied. But on the most dispassionate consideration of it, a doubt will arise whether the Dublin College of Physicians, in suiting its pharmacopoeia to the wants and wishes of Ireland, is bound to consult the convenience of London druggists. The more superficial objection, that inveterate habit may lead practitioners or dispensers to commit the error of using the older and heavier drachms and scruples, is answered by the College in its preface. It is futile to deny that it is of no consequence to medical prescriptions, "if those practitioners, who do not take the trouble of consulting this work, should, in ordering a drachm or a scruple of some active drug, be administering a little less (or more) of it than they intended,"-the whole possible difference being only an eleventh part. Neither is it a very serious difficulty that there already exists in the national imperial weights a drachm of only half the value of the new Dublin apothecaries' drachm; because the imperial drachm of 27 grains is so little in use, that few practical men in any trade are aware of its existence. There remains a fourth difficulty to dispose of,-namely, that the new scruple, drachm, and ounce are not multiples by entire numbers of the Troy grain. This is a difficulty which the College cannot get over, as it has endeavoured to do, by the simple assertion, that "it cannot consider it a matter of any practical importance" (Preface, p. 23). Is it not an important practical difficulty, that, when a physician has arranged in his mind a dose of some composite medicine, which is to be frequently repeated, he must be subjected to the inconvenience and risk of calculating without the aid of entire multiples, how many scruples, drachms, or ounces must go into his prescription, for the necessary repetition of what is represented in grains for a single dose? Or if he impose the calculation on his druggist by his cabalistic Mitt. tal. vi., or whatever the number may be, what confidence can he put in the dispenser habitually doing that right, which he is himself afraid of doing wrong? It will be answered, however, that in such circumstances the physician and the druggist may adhere to grains in the calculation, discarding higher denominations of weight altogether. But then arises irresistibly the question,-Whether these higher denominations are essentially necessary for any purpose? In point of fact, nothing but inveterate custom can be pleaded for the retention of any below the value of an ounce, except the grain. And it may be confidently predicted, that should the Colleges of London and Edinburgh follow the example set them in Dublin, and substitute imperial for apothecary's weights, the medical profession, whatever pains may be taken to devise ingenious drachms and scruples, will disown these inventions, and be content with grains for actual service. Meanwhile, every pharmacologist will feel deep interest in the fate of the experiment now fairly begun in Ireland.

The Dublin Pharmacopoeia of 1826 was prepared too soon to

take advantage of the reformed measures of the Act of Parliament of the same year. But the new edition follows the example first given by the London College. All the pharmacopoeias, therefore, now adopt the imperial measure, according to which the gallon consists of eight pints, each of twenty ounces avoirdupois; and the inferior denominations are the arbitrary but convenient subdivisions first proposed in the pharmacopoeia of London. All that need be said under this head is, that the Colleges are probably right in following the system fixed on by the Legislature; but that the Legisture is clearly wrong in one material article of it. An imaginary advantage on the part of the number 8, as a divisor, led to the division of the gallon into pints of twenty ounces each,—an exorbitant measure, which few can cheerfully swallow even after twentyfour years' trying. Had the very convenient sub-multiple 10 been chosen, the country would have had a pint but little different from those previously in use everywhere, corresponding exactly with the imperial pound, and such as pharmacy would have adopted without

a murmur.

The nomenclature of pharmacy has been felt no less a stumblingblock by the College of Physicians of Dublin than by the other colleges. It has contrived to steer a middle course between the parti-coloured pharmaceutic names of the Edinburgh pharmacopoeia and the sternly scientific ones of that of London. Thus, it follows the former, not only in the terms Alumen, Lithargyrum, Calomelas, and Sublimatum corrosivum, but likewise in the less ancient yet unchemical designations of Liquor arsenicalis, Ferrum tartarizatum, Antimonium tartarizatum, Acidum muriaticum, Ammonia murias, Morphic murias, Quinæ sulphas; and even adds to these its own Hepar sulphuris, Cupri subacetas, and Bismuthi subnitras. But, with a singular and incomprehensible impartiality, it imitates the London College in now, for the first time, adopting such phrases of the newest chemistry as Barii chloridum, Ferri sesquichloridum, Acidum arseniosum, and even those barbarous London inventions Ammonio-chloridum, Ammonio-citras, Ammonio-sulphas. This is a theme, however, on which criticism is dumb. Happy is he who can be satisfied with any pharmaceutic nomenclature now practicable. If there be any single topic which calls more loudly than another for a pharmaceutic convention of the three Colleges, it is the nomenclature of chemical drugs. Let the convention be based on only a single condition,-that the names chosen shall be permanent, -and great good cannot fail to result. One inevitable consequence, indeed, would be the abandonment, sooner or later, of the strict language of chemical science, which the London College perseveres in following as its guide. But surely that learned body must now acknowledge this surrender to be a crying necessity. The language of scientific chemistry is tottering in its most essential components. The universally received doctrine of the hydracids has already for some time involved a more philosophical nomenclature

for them; and the terms Hadrooklora And verson and cys sulphuric acids, had barely been sanctioned by the London pher macopoeia when they became the Chloniące, Chachanwand Sode hydric acids of French scientific chemistry. The charge which Anx arisen in the views taken by the majority of chemists, relative to the combining equivalents of some metals, overturns the received names of many of their compounds. The Sparkle grans must pus sently become the Tende, the Scoprismiphure of the Tersulphuret; and while London physicians prescribe calomel and corrosive-sublimate as Chloride and Borde of www. a fatal chemical necessity will soon compel the druggist to know the former also by the name of Dichloride, and the latter by that of Chloride. And if the recent doctrine, that hydrogen is the only acidifying element, gain converts in proportion to its philosophical attractiveness, who can tell how soon chemistry may cease to know even such household words as Sulphuric, Nitric, and 7% phoric acids? Already they are the Sulphionide, Nitrationide, and Phosphionide of hydrogen of some reformers. Why not speedily the Sulphionhydric, Nitrationhydric, and Phosphionhydric acids, it the French nomenclature of the recognised hydracids be sanctioned ?

The arrangement of the new Dublin pharmacopoeia has been censured, and certainly seems open to objection. Whether it be regarded as a work of reference for the practitioner, the druggist, or the student, it is inconvenient that the chemical compounds, instead of being arranged according to their active basos, for ex ample, as compounds of iron, potash, lime, &c., -- should be scattered throughout the book according to the elements or compound bodies with which the bases are united, that is, grouped as oxidon, chlorides, sulphates, and so on. But this is a question of taste, an to which competent judges may differ without serious imputation upon their discernment. Not so in regard to the last topic, to which we must confine ourselves in the present criticism.

If there is any one object which more than another every col lege of physicians is bound to keep constantly before their eyes, it is the necessity of accommodating themselves to one another in their pharmacopoeias. An Imperial pharmacoposin, which was aimed at about sixteen years ago, and we believe conscientiously and earnestly aimed at by at least two of the colleges, is one of those blessings which the present generation is doomed to be. hold only in its dreams. But in the meantime it must greatly contribute to the comfort of practitioners in the three divisions of this empire, and still more to that of chemists and druggists, if the several Colleges will endeavour to assimilate the pharmacopains to one another. And it is our honest conviction that, unless by such progressive assimilation, the way never will be cleared for w conjunct pharmacopoeia. The Dublin College has not lost sight of these considerations. In many details, the data of the other col leges have been adopted. So far as we can see, this might have