The British pharmacopoeia / published under the direction of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, pursuant to the Acts XXI & XXII Victoria Cap. XC (1858) and XXV & XXVI Victoria Cap. XCI (1862), 1898.

  • General Medical Council.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The British pharmacopoeia / published under the direction of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, pursuant to the Acts XXI & XXII Victoria Cap. XC (1858) and XXV & XXVI Victoria Cap. XCI (1862), 1898. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    avoirdupois ounce of 437'5 grains, and the fact that the ounce is not a simple multiple of the grain, are grave defects; but it has not been thought desirable to make any change in this respect at present, especially as no practical inconvenience appears to be experienced in preparing by means of these weights the medicines ordered in the Pharmacopoeia. It is strongly urged upon all medical men to avoid the use of the terms ounce and pound with reference to any other than the avoirdupois or Imperial Standard weight; but it is still optional v/ith the physician in prescribing to use the symbols 3 (scruple) and 3 (drachm), the former re- presenting 20 and the latter 60 grains. ... In the measurement of liquids the Imperial measure is used for the higher denominations, and the fluid ounce and its subdivisions into fluid drachms and minims for the lower denominations of volume.' ^ The alternative employment, in the British Phar- macopoeias of 1867 and 1885, of metric weights and measures in the paragraphs relating to volumetric analysis, is now extended to every official paragraph which makes reference to the usual Imperial weights and measures ; but the metric system alone is employed in all paragraphs relating to analysis, whether gravi- metric or volumetric. During the period of transition from the Imperial to the metric system a certain amount of confusion is hkely to occur. It has been somewhat difficult, in the course of a single paragraph, to embody formulae involv- ing definite quantities of materials, and to give precise