PHARMACOPCE1A. This term has been applied to various works, consisting for the most part of (1)a list of the articles of the materia medica, whether simple or compound; with their characters, and the tests for the determination of their purity; and (2) a collec tion of approved receipts or prescriptidus, together with the processes for articles in the maferia medica, obtained by chemical operations. Almost every civilized country of importance has its national pliarmacopceia, amongst which those of the United States, France, and Prussia deserve specially honorable notice. The first pharmacopoeia pub lished under authority appears to have been that of Nuremberg in the year 1542. A student named Valerius Cordus, who was staying for a short time at Nuremberg, showed a collection of medical receipts, which he had selected from the works of the most eminent writers, to the physicians of that city, who were so struck with its value that they urged him to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and obtained for his work the sanction df the senates. Before this time, the books chiefly in use amongst apothecaries were the treatises: On Simples by Avicenna and Serapion; the Liter Semlaris of Balchasim ben Aberazerim; the Antidotarium of Johannes Damascenus or Mezue, arranged in classes; and the Anti1otarium of Nicolaus de Salerno, which was arranged alphabetically. This work was commonly called Akolaus Magnus; to distinguish it from an abridgment known as Nicolaut Farms.
Confining our remarks to the British pharmaconeeias, we may notice that the first edition of the London pharmacopoeia (or, more correctly speaking, of the pharmacopcela of the London college of physicians) appeared in 1618, and was chiefly founded on the works of Mezue and Nieolaus de Salerno. Successive editions appeared in 1627, 1635, 1650, 1697, 1724, 1746, 17S7, 1809, 1824, 1836, and 1851; and form an important contri bution to the history of the progress of pharmacy and therapeutics (luring the last two centuries and a half. The nature and the'number of time ingredients that entered into the composition of many of the pharmaceutical preparations of the 17th and 18th centuries would equally astonish most of the practitioners and patients of the present day. In the ear
lier editions we find enumerated earth-worms, snails, wood-lice, frogs, toads, puppy dogs, foxes (" a fat fox of middle age, if you can get such a one"), the skull of a man who had been hanged, the blood of a cat, the urine and excrements of various animals, etc.; and electnaries were ordered, containing 60, 62, and in one instance—Mathiolus, his great antidote against' poison and pestilence-124 different ingredients.
The Edinbdrgh pliarmacopona is more modern than the London, the first edition having appeared in 1699; while the Dublin pharmaeopmia does not date farther back than 1807. Tlie latest editions of these works appeared in the years 1811 and 1850 respectively.
Until the medical act passed in 1858, the right of publishing the pharnmeopmias for England, Scotland, and Ireland was vested in the colleges of physichins of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin respectively; and as these three pnarinaeopmias contained many important preparations, similar in name but totally different in sireqkh (as, for example, dilute hp rocyailie acid, solution of hydrochlorate of morphia, etc.), dangerons compli cations arose from a London prescriptiou being mode up in Edinburgh, or Dublin, or rice rend. By that act it is ordained that "the general [medical] council shah cause to be published, under their direction, a book containing:111st of medicines and compounds, and the manner of preparing them, together with the true weights and measures by which they are to be prepared and mixed; and containing such other matter and things relating thereto as the general council shall think lit to be called flriti8h Phar macopeia, which shall for all purposes be deemed to be substituted throughout Unat Brilaia and Ireland, for the several above-mentioned pharmacoptrias." The 13riad Pharmacopeia, which appeared in the beginning of the year 1864, gave rise to such a general feeling of disappointment throughout the whole ranks of the profession (including even the chemists and druggists), that the general council brought out a new and amended edition in 1867. This work was a very great improvemeut ou its prede cessor, and has been favorably received by the profession.