An outline of the history of pharmacy in Ireland / by William D. Moore.

  • Moore, William Daniel, 1813-1871.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An outline of the history of pharmacy in Ireland / by William D. Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    with the composition of medicines the performance of many of the operations of surgery; and to the third was allotted the treatment of surgical diseases, many of the operations being committed to the professors of the second branch. This three- fold division seems to have continued, for the most part, until the decline and fall of the Roman empire(a). It is, however, to the Arabs that chemistry and pharmacy were, at a subsequent period, most indebted. The former had been cultivated by the philosophers of Alexandria, solely in reference to the transmutation of the metals. The Arabs had a particular taste for it, and early applied themselves to its study; for their lirst chemist, commonly known by the name of Geber, lived in the eighth century. In his work on alchemy mention is made of some mercurial preparations, such as corro- sive sublimate and red precipitate; and also nitric acid, nitro- muriatic acid, nitrate of silver, and many other chemical pre- parations. Other Arabian philosophers and physicians were also engaged in the study of chemistry, particularly as it relates to pharmacy(Z»). Mesue, who died in the ninth century was the son of an apothecary, and bred under Gabriel, the son of Backtishua, and by him preferred to the inspection of the hospital(c). He was a Nestorian Christian, the best scholar and physician of his age, and in great favour with the several caliphs(cZ). In fact the Mohammedans cultivated pharmacy with much success, and almost entirely changed its aspect. They invented («) Good’s History of Medicine, so far as it relates to the Profession of the Apothecary, from the earliest Accounts to the present Period. Second Edition. London, 1796. Page 62. (6) Sprengel, Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 263. (c) Hospitals had been established by ecclesiastics in the sixth century, but in the middle of the eighth the caliphs opened at Bagdad the first hos- pitals and public pharmacies intended to facilitate the study of medicine. So great was the celebrity of Bagdad at one time that it contained 6000 stu- dents.—Sprenyel. (<7) Freind’s History of Physic, vol. ii. p. 38.