A letter to the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, of Dublin, and of Edinburgh, from Andrew Duncan ... respecting a proposal for the improvement of medicine, by publishing annually, under the authority of these three Royal Colleges, a Pharmacopoeia Britannica.

  • Duncan, Andrew, 1744-1828.
Date:
1826?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, of Dublin, and of Edinburgh, from Andrew Duncan ... respecting a proposal for the improvement of medicine, by publishing annually, under the authority of these three Royal Colleges, a Pharmacopoeia Britannica. 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.

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    tate them, by adopting decimals. I would con- tinue the present grain as the basis ; and I would adopt as multiples of it decigrains, centigrains, and mijlegrains. Of these millegrains ten should form the Libe *. The libe, again, might be in- creased in a decimated progression, as well as the grain, its multiple being a decilibc, a centilibe, and a millelibe. From this standard for weight, it cannot, I think, be doubted, that many import- ant advantages would arise, both to the Physician and to the Apothecary. Another obvious benefit that might be obtain- ed by an Act of Parliament, is an annual im- provement of the Pharmacopoeia Britannica, cor- rected according to the progressive discoveries made in the Practice of Medicine. It has hi- therto been the uniform practice of all the three Royal Colleges to improve their Pharmacopoeias, not gradatim, but per saltum, as it may be termed. They have pubhshed new editions only at the end of ten, twelve, or sometimes even more than twenty years. By this means, the altera- tions have necessarily been very considerable, and have often led to an almost total change of lan- * A term derived from the Latin word libra, though much heavier than the present pound of apothecaries' weight.