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It is, however, evidently indebted for this unexpected rescue from oblivion to a cause very remote from that which may be at first imagined; not from any belief in its powers or reliance upon its efficacy, but from a disinclination to oppose the torrent of popular prejudice, and to reject what has been established by authority and sanctioned by time. For the same reason, and in violation of their better judgment, the editors have retained the absurd formula of Diest for the preparation of an extract of opium; which, after directing various successive operations, concludes by ordering the decoction to be boiled incessantly for six months, supplying the waste of water at intervals! Many of the compound formulæ in this new Codex, it is frankly allowed, possess an unnecessary and unmeaning, if not an injurious complexity; and yet, such force has habit, and so paramount are the verba magistri, that the editors are satisfied in distinguishing the more important ingredients by printing them in Italics, leaving the rest to be supplied at the whim and caprice of the dispenser, and thus are the grand objects and use of a national Pharmacopœia defeated, which should above all things insure uniformity in the strength and composition of its officinal preparations.