Manual of materia medica & therapeutics : being an abridgment of the late Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica arranged in conformity with the British pharmacopœia, and adapted to the use of medical practitioners, chemists and druggists, medical and pharmaceutical students, etc. / by Frederic John Farre ; assisted by Robert Bentley and by Robert Warington.

  • Pereira, Jonathan, 1804-1853.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of materia medica & therapeutics : being an abridgment of the late Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica arranged in conformity with the British pharmacopœia, and adapted to the use of medical practitioners, chemists and druggists, medical and pharmaceutical students, etc. / by Frederic John Farre ; assisted by Robert Bentley and by Robert Warington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION. Before I describe the several officinal articles, it may he useful to make some preliminary observations on the Phar- macopoeia itself. The British Pharmacopoeia describes the articles of the Materia Medica more fully and more systematically than the Pharmacopoeias of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. The Preface to the Pharmacopoeia mentions the rule which has been adopted in com- piling the list; namely, that it has been made to contain^ ' in its simjilest 2^harmaceutical form, every definite me- dicinal substance' which has received the sanction of the Medical Council. By'its simplest pharmaceutical form' is meant the simplest state in which the substance is employed in medicine. In accordance with this rule, solution of ammonia is placed in the Materia Me- dica, because the solution of the gas is the simplest form in which ammonia can be conveniently kept or used ; while the solutions of potash and soda are only found among the preparations, and caus- tic potash and caustic soda are placed in the Materia Medica as being more sim- ple pharmaceutical forms of these al- kalies than their watery solutions. It appears, however, to have been difficult to carry out this rule in all cases, as, if it had been strictly followed, acetic acid, for instance, should not have been placed in the Materia Medica as well as glacial acetic acid. The apparent object of the rule is to set before the pi-actitioner a list of the substances selected for medicinal use, the second part of the Pharmacopoeia containing merely the mode of forming these sub- stances, when artificial, and preparations and compounds of them, i. e. forms for administering them in their most effi- cient states. Each article of the Materia JMedica is distinguished (1) by a Name, (2) by a Definition, (3) by Descriptive Charac- ters, (4) by Tests, and, if organic, (5) by the Name of the plant or animal which yields it; and (6) by a reference to a Figure of the same ; or if inorganic and of definite composition, (7) by its Chemical Symbol. The Nomenclature of the Pharmaco- poeia is a subject of some importance, as the changes of names appear to be rather numerous. The three national Phar- macopoeias frequently employed each a diffiirent name to indicate the same article; hence the adoption of one of these involved the change of two others. Some new names have also been intro- duced. In selecting names, however, whether new or old, the framers of the Pharmacopoeia have generally preferred such as are likely to be permanent, and have avoided those which, as they ex- press a hypothetical composition, are more liable to future alteration. Eed oxide of mercury has been preferred to binoxide, the green and red iodides to iodide and biniodide, acid tartrate of potash to bitartrate, and subacetate of lead to diacetate.' The names of calo- mel and corrosive sublimate have, for a similar reason, been preferred to chloride and bichloride of mercury; names which were supposed to convey a false idea of the composition of these salts. The first of these names is unobjectionable, but the latter, at least in its Latin form of hydrargyrum corrosivum sublimatum, is both inelegant and inconveniently long. The Pharmacopoeia might in this ca^e have adopted with advantage *a 2