The extra pharmacopoeia of Martindale and Westcott.

  • Westcott W. Wynn (William Wynn), 1848-1925.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The extra pharmacopoeia of Martindale and Westcott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    k drop, as the late W. Martindale suggested (P.J. iS;6,679), might be considered as of a cubic centimetre, or about J of a minim. Of mobile liquids, such as Ether, Chloroform, Tincture of Digitalis, Almond Oil, and Oleic Acid, a drop is much smaller thauthat of water (varying, of course, with the neck of the bottle from which it is dropped). In the case of Oleic Acid, Almond, Olive, and other light oils, the 'drop,' on an average, weighs half a grain, and in place of weighing small quantities of these, bwo drops may for practical purposes be con- sidered as the equivalent of one grain. At the International Congress for the Unifica- tion of Pharmacopceial Formulas of Potent Drugs and Preparations held at Brussels in 1902, it was. decided that the Drop Measure should have an outside diameter of 3 mm., and give (at the temperature of 15°C.) 20 drops of distilled water weighiug 1 Gm.-B. & C.D.ii./o2,300. The Parmacopea Ofieial Espanola, 1905, gives a drop measure table, v.p. S9S (number of drops in a Grm. of different medicaments). The measure of 1,000 cubic centimetres recog- nised by the Pharmacopoeia is not the same thing as a litre, which is the volume of 1,000 grammes of distilled water at its temperature of maximum density, 4° C. and 760 mm. barometric pressure (B.P. p. 430), whereas the measure of 1,000 cubic centimetres, P.P., is the volume occu- pied by 1,000 grammes of distilled water at 155° C, the difference being that 1 cubic centi- metre is stated to be equal to 0-99981 millilitre, a millilitre therefore equals 1-00016 Cc. In the operations of the Pharmacopoeia the volume of 1,000 grammes at 15-5° C. is directed to be employed in the place of the standard litre. The millilitre has been contracted to the term ' mil.' Pipettes are made delivering one mil, one decimil, and one centimil. These terms will probably be used in the next B.P.—P.J. ii. 04, 800,923; ii /05,3. The old apothecaries' and avoirdupois weights shoidd be abandoned—and it is claimed the b