RC (MHi); at foot of text: “The honble. Thos. Jefferson Esqr.”; endorsed by TJ as received 7 Apr. 1818 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: communication from a committee of the Medical Society of the State of New-York composed of David Hosack, John R. B. Rodgers, Samuel L. Mitchill, John Stearns, John Watts, Theodric Romeyn Beck, Spalding, Wright Post, and Alexander H. Stevens, New York, 4 Mar. 1818, transmitting a series of resolutions approved that year by the society proposing the establishment of “a uniform system of preparing, and compounding medicines, throughout the United States”; complaining that “so multifarious are the names of medicines, that a name which is common in one town may be unknown in another, or, what is worse, be applied to a very different medicine”; inviting the various state medical societies, colleges of physicians and surgeons, and medical departments in other institutions of higher learning to come together to create an “American Pharmacopœia”; stating that the United States should be divided into four districts, with a convention to be held in each to formulate or select an appropriate pharmacopoeia; suggesting that the middle district hold its meeting in Philadelphia on 1 June 1819; recommending that a general gathering convene on 1 Jan. 1820 in Washington, D.C., to review the district conventions’ findings and set national standards; urging that a similar assembly meet every ten years to revise the work; and calling on all American druggists and apothecaries to adhere to the decisions of these conventions (printed circular in DNLM; at head of text: “Circular”).