The Bengal dispensatory. Chiefly compiled from the works of Roxburgh, Wallich, Ainslie, Wight, Arnot, Royle, Pereira, Lindley, Richard, and Feé, including the results of numerous special experiments / By W.B. O'Shaughnessy ... Published by order of Government.

  • O'Shaughnessy, William B. (William Brooke), Sir, 1809-1902.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Bengal dispensatory. Chiefly compiled from the works of Roxburgh, Wallich, Ainslie, Wight, Arnot, Royle, Pereira, Lindley, Richard, and Feé, including the results of numerous special experiments / By W.B. O'Shaughnessy ... Published by order of Government. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    its details to the Committee. The febrifuge powers of Nar- cotine^* the purgative Kaladana_, the emetic Crinum^ the ex¬ traordinary stimulant and narcotic Gunjah, with many other substances, were thus successively examined; materials, in short, were being collected, which in due time would have grown into a rich catalogue, when the Editor received new orders from the Medical Board of the day, which compelled him to relinquish much of his experimental researches, and devote himself to the task of compiling not only a Pharma¬ copoeia, but a Dispensatory of general Materia Medica. It would be highly presumptuous in the Editor to question the wisdom of this decision; he is well aware that its chief fault consisted in entrusting the task to one so imperfectly qualified as himself for its satisfactory performance. He at¬ tempted it however with the feeling, that if unsuccessful in the full development of the plan, the resulting work would at all events prove a useful class-book of Materia Medica for the instruction of his native pupils, and serve as the outline of one which, in a subsequent edition, more leisurely re¬ searches and opportunity might complete to his own satis¬ faction. The volume now published constitutes the Dispensatory. It embraces instructions on pharmaceutical manipulations ; on the mode of taking specific gravities; of making ordinary meteorological observations, (explanatory details being given under each head); an outline of Chemistry for the guidance of * Or Anarcotine, as we subsequently ventured to term it, from its remarkable want of all narcotic properties.
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