A supplement to the Pharmacopoeia: being a treatise on pharmacology in general. Including not only the drugs and compounds which are used by practitioners of medicine, but also those which are sold by chemists, druggists, and herbalists, for other purposes ... / by Samuel Frederick Gray.

  • Gray, Samuel Frederick, 1766-1828.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A supplement to the Pharmacopoeia: being a treatise on pharmacology in general. Including not only the drugs and compounds which are used by practitioners of medicine, but also those which are sold by chemists, druggists, and herbalists, for other purposes ... / by Samuel Frederick Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    avoid that source of error, by using the common weight, which the apothecary must have for verifymg his purchases and for his retail trade; or, if they will still persist in the use of the Troy ounce, that they would direct ounces only, without any mention of pounds by weight; for, in using the common ounces, with the drachms, scruples, and grains of the Troy, or with the liquid measures, the error is very trifling; and if those who use the common weights were to add an ounce overweight to every ten, or if only 1 or 2 oz. are mentioned, a drachm for each, whenever the smaller weights, or liquid measures, are used in the same composi- tion, the error would be rendered very inconsiderable, be- cause 1] oz. avoirdupois differ only by 12 gr. and a half from 10 oz. ‘Troy. As physicians do not themselves prepare the medicines they exhibit to their patients, it is very convenient for them to intimate to the neighbouring retailers whom the sick em- ploy for this purpose, the medicines they are likely to order, and the mode in which they wish certain compounds, ‘that require time for their preparation, should be kept ready in the shops: this, and this alone, is the true office of a Phar- macopoeia. And indeed the faculty of medicine at Paris, in the preface to their Codex Medicamentarius, or Pharmaco- poeia, expressly disclaim any intention of hindering practi- tioners from using other remedies, or shopkeepers from keep- ing other articles, besides what are mentioned by them ; and further observe, that they have inserted several popular medi- cines, although not likely to be ordered by the faculty them- selves, in order that they may be uniformly prepared, and of course uniform in their action. Before the publication of local Pharmacopceias, the apo- thecaries kept in their shops the six following books: Avi- cenna on Simples; Serapion on the same subject; Simon Januensis De Synonymis, and his Quid pro quo; the Liber Servitoris of Bulchasim Ben Aberazerin, treating of the preparation of minerals, plants, and animals, the type of the chemical part of the modern pharmacopeeias; the Anti- dotarium of Johannes Damascenus or Mesue, arranged in classes like the Galenical part of our present Pharmacopceias; and the Antidotarium of Nicolaus de Salerno, containing these Galenical compounds, arranged alphabetically, of which there were two editions in use: in the common edition, or Nicolaus parvus, as it was called, several of the composi-