Pharmacopoeias and Related Literature in Britain and America, 1618-1847 : Nicoletto Vernia and Agostino Nifo

Collected in this volume are the author's historical and bibliographical studies of what may be described as the British and American literature of pharmacotherapeutics. The practitioner of medicine in the period covered was intimately concerned with the selection, compounding, dispensing and operation of the materia medica. Medical theories, etiology and nosology were left to the academics, although the academics often played a dominant role in what went into the pharmacopoeia. The very first business of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh recorded in 1682 concerned the issuance of a pharmacopoeia. Indeed, with a few exceptions the pharmacopoeia was the province, not of the pharmacist, but of the physician, well into the 19th century. The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, particularly, was revised almost decennially from 1699 to 1841 and provides a detailed history of the changes taking place in pharmacotherapy and the impact of developments in science upon it.The studies here include checklists of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, the Edinburgh Dispensatories, the foreign publication of the British literature in the genre, and the American publications in German of the relevant literature.