Observations on medical weights and measures.

  • Wilson, Charles.
Date:
[1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on medical weights and measures. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    1/26 (page 193)
    ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. Article I.— Observations on Medical Weights and Measures, toith the Method for their Adjustment in the Neio Bntish PJiarmacopoeia. By Charles Wilson, M.D., Fellow of the Eoyal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. No one will question the importance of a well-arranged system of Weights and Measures in Pharmacy, though many may look with little interest on the history of their use, in different ages and in dif- ferent countries. ^ Witliout altogether neglecting the latter depart- ment of the subject, I shall enter no further upon it, during the following remarks, than may appear necessary for purposes of illus- tration, in so far as a knowledge of the past condition of any arrange- ment is desirable or requisite for a just appreciation of its future changes. To attempt more would demand the scope of an ample treatise: for, so far from the topic of medical weights and measures being a simple and easy one, the history of their origin, of their various relations, and of their changes, to and fro, at different periods, IS one of great intricacy, and demanding proportionate labour. My leadmg object will be to indicate briefly the present state of medical metrology in this country, and to point to its improvement. liut what might, at other times, be received merely as a question ot great, though not of any special or immediate interest, must be aamittecl as havmg peculiarly direct claims on attention at the pre- sent conjuncture. The fact that, under the recent Act for register- ing the _ quahfications of medical practitioners, there is a clause authonsmg the General Medical Council to frame, or cause to be tramed, a now British Pharmacopoeia, and to fix the proper weights TITT'! '^^^^ ^^^ t« compounded, with the Xo's' ^^ni ';.'''°'^^jSly, such a Pharmacopoeia is already in progiess under the auspices of that body, gives a singular opportune- VOL. \.—m. ni. SErTEMBER 1859. 2 c c I