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.

    6/26 (page 198)
    ScotlaiKP attaches a fine of eiglit cows to the offence of using divers or unequal weights; or, in the words of the old Scots translation, of probably the end of the fourteenth century: Gif ony man aganis this decrete of goddis law haldis uniele and uncvyn wechtis he sal geyfF to the kyngis amendis viii ky. In the same spirit, and at a later period, another Scottish Act statutes and ordains,^ that na Burgh have ane weicht to bye with and ane uther to sell, dif- ferent in weicht therefra, bot that all Burrowes have ane universal weicht of the stane, baith for byeing and selling of all stuffe in time to cum. It was in no sense, therefore, what had been for long deemed a light transgression, or one against which serious warnings had not been raised in matters of greater indifference than those relating to the guardianship of health and life, into which we have seen that the druggists had glided. The irregularities which had crept in were obviously, however, not of a nature to be easily reached or controlled by the Colleges of Physi- cians. They were rooted too deeply in the general relations of com- merce, and had spread over too wide and congenial a field, to admit of being readily extirpated; still, as was incumbent upon those on whom rested the responsibility, the effort was made, and was fre- quently renewed as occasion presented itself. In a document pre- pared by a Committee of the London Eoyal College in 1742, and then printed, it is urged, for example,^ that the pound troy being much less than the avoirdupois, while the troy ounce is the heavier, yet as the druggists and grocers sell by the avoirdepois weight, the apothecaries do not generally use the troy weight for pounds and ounces; whereby it happens, that, when ingredients are some pre- scribed in pounds and others in ounces, they are not in their prac- tice proportioned according to the intention of the prescription ; and when an ingredient is prescribed by any subdivision of the ounce, their small weights being adapted to a greater ounce than the avoir- depois, those ingredients are also used in a wrong proportion. So strong, actually, had been the proclivity to the source of error thus complained against, that the Pharmacopoeia itself had not been able to escape its influence; and it is further stated that, though the troy weights only are described at the beginning, yet many of the composi- tions are prescribed according to the proportions of the avoirdupois. Having amended, however, this fault on their own parts, by replacing everywhere the troy standard, the committee finally recommended the total abolition of this confused use of the two weights, and desired meanwhile to leave the rest to the vigilance of the College censors over the shops of the apothecaries. Again, in a plan for a new Pharmacopoeia, issued in 1745, the London College reverts to this subject, describing the irregularities which had now intruded 1 Acts of FarUamenls of Scotland: Assise JRegis David /., c. xxxi. 2 7 James V. (1540), c. 114: Lnics and Acts of Parliameul of Scotland, part i., p. 253. 3 Draught for the Reformation of the London Pharinacopceia, p. xxv.