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os a national Work of this sori greab disti culties might, and Would occur, prejudices and different modes of thought and practice Would probably create much differe iace of opinion, butnone of these Would be insui molant able to menos Sense and scien Ce, and Ι am persuaded that sonae future age M ill see the ad vantage ande vera necessi ty of the attempl.
The Arrangement of a Pharmacopoeia is arbitrary and of litile importance, it is only a reo ister of those medicines 3 ich the apothecary
is to keep and prepare, and in some instances a simple alphabetical order a lone has been thought sum cient. That no v adopted has fortis only ad vantages that it brings together more closely similar preparations under Similar hea is, and is more ac cordant With the chemicat opinions of the present dab . The Nomenclature, whicli is the nexi generalpoint, is of more conseque iace, it affecis both the subjects of natural history and chemicat composition. With respect to the former, the planis employed by the Arabian and Grecianpla siciaris iuere very imperfectly undet stood, and most Common ly rather guessed at, on the- revivat os learning in the V est. Stili, hoWever,
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PREFACE.most pari, Were translations of the current nam es of the day. These were admitted into the Pharmacopoeia, and retained without any definition or certain ty, untii, in the year l720, it Was found farther necessary to refer, for thepurpo se of ac Cura Cy, to the standard Systematicivork of that time; and in the edition then pub-Jished a correspondent Column of Synonyms vas gi veri frona Bauhin's Pinax; this Was continued uiso in the Pharmacopoeia of li45; butbefore the publication of that of 1787, the SyStem of Linnaeus h ad es tablislied itself in generat
Superiori ty, and the referen CeS vere, theres Ore, then made to his Species Plantarum, With OCCasional deviations, auliere more recent authoritiesor more ac Curate Observation require t it. In his nomenclature Linnaeus en deavoured to incorporate the received medicat ternas; biit, Withrespect to arti Cles of fore igit production, his information avas in many instances necessari tydefective, and they of coui Se yere osten mi S-
applied at sit si, and have stili continue t to beso, uniit at last the establis hed botanical and
medicinal nam es have sonaetimes been sotinii atdirect variance vitii each other. AS an eXample, ille use of the terna Cicuta in medio me hasbeen synonymo us With a species of the Lin- Iiaean genus Comum, and the word Cicuta is used in the fame system to e X press a disserent tenus. SO great an inconvenience the College
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liave no v remedi ed as far as Was in their po ver, and with as litile violence as possibie to then ames Common ly emplo b ed. Under this impression they have thought it most convenientand fully sum cient for the purpo se of distinction, to express each article in generat by a single Word ; and have retained the former tertia, Whereuer it accorded, ei ther With the generio orspecific name of Linii aeus. Both of these, however, it has been necessary to employ in those instances Where it was required to distinguislibet ween tuto species talien frona the Same genus
macopoeia os l745, the nam e of the part os aptant Where a part Only vras taken, Was, in thecatalogue os materia medica, ad ded in the nominative case to the nam e of the plant in thegenitive, and repeated in ali the formulae in Which the article was employed; in that ofl787, the nam e of the plant itself was placedin the nominative case, and that of the partia sed was separated frona it by a Comma, placedin the nominative also, printed in a different character, and omitted entire ly in the subsequent formulae; so that in the body of the Pharmacopoeia the nam e of the whole was used toe press iis paris, as, for instance, Semia for Mimor
folia. In the si si specimen, this sanae practi Ce vas ad Opted an d farther extended frona thepreparation S, to the catalogue also, in Which
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ΡREFACE. xii the ossicinal nam e of the plant alone occupi edthe si si columia, and ille systematic one, withthe part thereos used am Xed to it, formed these conii columia. It was thought, hoWever, onmore mature Consideration, that this sacrifice
of propriety to brevi ty Was incorreet; that noauthori ty existed by Whicli the transfer of thenanae of the whole plant to one of iis paris could he justi sied; and it Was, there re, resolved to use the nanae only Without any addition, Where the Whole plant is used ; and , Where paris are taken, to designate those paris, and toin corporate both in the sit si columia, as in theΡharmacopoeia of 1745. In the nomenclature of chemicat substances and Compositio iis, there has been more dissi-cul ty in adopting generat principies, and at thesanae time bearing in minit practical application; there may, the refore, be more ground sperhaps for objection. The founders of the French chemicat language bulli it upon the foundation of their o vn theory, and willed that
the one Should be an explanation of the othei. of the masterly manner in Whicli the mundation vas laid, and the Superstructure Completed, it Isnot necessary here to speak, hecause iis generali eception through Europe is a sufficient pro os ofiis excellerice; but perhaps a langu age, Whenit professes to describe, as weli as designate, ita objecis, goes too far; and is the thcory of this
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science should hereaster change, a change in the langu age dependent there in must also aC- company it; and this may not appear very improbabie, When We contemplate the late gigantic discoveri es of Mi . Davy With respect to the al-kalies and eartiis, and the employment of a ne and po veri ut agent in chemicat decompositioris: perhaps, the refore, it Nould on e very account have been bet ter is a set os arbitraryternas hau been at once invented and defined, Without any Connection Whate ver With thetheory of any particular period. For What is necessary to the perfection os a nomenclature ΘAs by Danaes substances are distinguished fronaeach other, their essentiat properties ought to
distinct as not to be liable to mistat es, and ab ove ali convey no false ideas of the substancethey a re intended to designate, Su Ch a nomenclature may be considereii as perfeci. The
principi e too os explaining the composition ofa Substance by affixing to it a nam e formed ofiliose of iis constituent paris, is too limited in iis application; it may suffice for compo uia is Ofa fe v constituent paris only, but must belli Opped in those numero his complex combina
tions Whicli are dat ly presented to us by nature
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and ari; and on this account mineralogy, Whichis but a branch of chemistry, has found thenecessi ty of using arbitrary ternas to designate iis particular subjecis. Os ali these inconveniences the College have felt the fuit force; butthey have finalty j adged it proper, for the sal eos uniformi ty and consistency, in adopting the producis of chemi Stry, to adopt also iis lan- .guage, to go farther in this respect than the Pharmacopoeia os l787 had done, and to dot aWay those peculiarities of nomenclature Whichwere then es tablished . . There are stili, hoWCUCr,. any names Whi CD, Chemicalij speaking, vili not bu found to be correet; as .in in StanCOS Where the substances have been too Complex tobe expressed without a periphrasis, Which would reniter them but ili sui ted to the purpo ses of prescription, or M aere the es tablished namen ei ther contradi ted the received doctrines of Chemisti γ, nori vas liable to mi flead in iis application. The eXpression also of the relative proportions of the constituent paris of Certatu salts whicli unite in more than one, by preti X-ing Sub or Super, accor ling to circumStan CeS, has been adopted in those cases Only in Whichthe Compotin is of more than One proportionare used pharmace uti catly; but these ternas have not been e X tended to other Cases Whereno such distinction: vas requisite, although,
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the particular substance. Another deviationstom chemicat usage has been made in placing the Danae of What is called the base of the saltsirst, instead os lust in order; this is, perhaps, a trining circumstance, and hard ly deseruingnotice, farther than to state, that it has pro- ceeiled frona caution rather than from any Whim sical singularity. In the medicat application os a sali, the base is of primary importanee, in Which any accidental mistake would
ile, or in the prescription os a physician. In mention ing the probabili ty of mista es, I shali take leave incidental ly to mention theimportance of a distinci, fuit, and legibi e pre- scription, both to the physician and his patient,
contracting it; a practice 'vhicli Can save veryli tile time to the proscribet , and may be pro ductive os fatal effecis. It is not necessary tostrengthen this assertion by stating facts of actual OCCui reiice ; unfortunately they are tos Common, and wight osten be prevented by at'
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tending to the circumstance I have mentioned.
It vult also be' und among the alterations, that the three former tities of Conseroa, Electuaririm, and Confectio, bet veen 3vhicli there has ne aer been any intelligibie differen ce, have ali been consolidaled under orae head , Confectio. The terna Ea tract also is farther extended, and Do v includes the articles Whicli vere calle diti Ui 33aled Dices, and in one instance Elate- ιπῖθ, a peCuliar substance, properly called Esecula. The strict chemicat application of the terni Emtraci is very limited, and used to DXpress Only one constituent part of What is obtained Dona planis by these processes; butin the r mode of preparation they a cord sufficiently to justi sy their arran gement Under Oneliead, for each consists of paris separated froni planis, hicli paris a re dissolved in ivater, ei thei natural ly present, as in se ii planis, or pur-
As the ternas no v introduced a re draivn frona generat chemistry, they are ali eady familiar tolli e greater part of the profession, and will be. easi ly understo od and retain ed. There are, itis true, Some una 'oidable evils Connected Witha frequent change and diversi ty of Nam es ; one
information contained in books, is there by graduallu reudered more and more inaccessi ble, to
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those Who do not professed ly stud y the old v Cabularies; and many an eXCellent modern praetitioner Would be puggled to eXplain sonae of the formulae whicli Uere Writteri even as late lyas the time of Sydentiam ; because they consistos articles whicli are ei ther beco me obsolete, orwhich have changed their nam es so osten, thatthey cannot be recognised in their ancient dress Vithout dissicut ty. Indoed, it has osten struch me that a mali of moderate ab ilities and dilis ence Could not do a more acceptabie serviceto his profession, than by compiling a Dictionary of Pharmacy and Materia Medica, Whichmight explain the practice and prescriptioris of the old Writers and Ρharmacopoeiae, and render intelligible that great mass of informationMhicli is no v rendered useless by obscuri ty of nomenclature and complexi ty of forna. Under this impression, I have myself made sonae Collections to variis such a Work, and shali pro
ad vance far enough, to satis sy myself, or to benesit my profession, is matter of great unc ertain ty. The necessi ty for sonae alteration in thedenominations of II eighis and Measures has long been apparent, and an attempt has been made to obviate it in part in the two last
editions of the Pharmacopoeia, by defining the
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to adopi them; and would by no means bejusti sed in creating that sori os confusion Whicli
Inuu necessarily ariSe in praetice frona theemployment of neW Ones, or the reduction Osboth to one common Standard.
It has fui ther be come necessary that the College should prescribe sonae rute for the dia vision os quantities of liquids of less bulli thana drachm, Which was the lo vest in their formertable. The customary mode os effecting this by dropa is uncertain in iiself, and has been lately rendered stili more so by the introduction into sonae stiops of glass meas ures, Whichassume that a drop is the fixitelli part os a