LAST EDITION.

last Latin Edition of 1817, seemed suffi-ciently to indicate the wishes of the profes-sion on this subject, and to sliow that theLatin language cannot be any longer retain-ed, without oceasioning, as of late, seriousdelays and obstructions in the way of futureimprovement.

The increasing frequency and extent ofthe adultcration of drugs induced us to pro-pose, a few ycars ago, to the Royal Collegeof Physicians of London, in the course ofcertain negociations relative to an Imperialor General Pharmacopoeia for the Empire,that to the List of the Materia Medicathcrcshould be added a short Statement of cha-racters for ascertaining, that the leading ar-ticles are free from known sophistications,and of the due degree of purity for medicaluse. The Suggestion has been partly adopt-ed in the recent edition of the London Phar-macopoeia ; and in the present work we haveendeavoured to carry more completely intoeffect the principles we propounded. In