Europe, besides many hundreds of ""rare and curious 

 drugs." Thus, in spite of difficulties encountered 

 from bringing several collections into the building at 

 one time, the materia medica exhibition got off to a 

 good start. 



It was Dr. Flint, the first curator, who stated in 

 1883 that remedial agents used by a nation or a 

 community are as indicative of the degree of their 

 cultural development and standard of living as is the 

 nature of their food, the character of their dwellings, 

 and their social and religious traditions. Therefore, 

 he felt that collections of drugs and medical, surgical 

 and pharmaceutical instruments and appliances 

 should not be thought of or designed as instructive 

 to the specialist only, but should also possess a general 

 interest for the public. Because of these objectives, 

 Dr. Flint added, this section was conceived as a de- 

 partmental division for the collecting and exhibiting 

 of objects related to medicine, surgery, pharma- 

 cology, hygiene, and all material related to the health 

 field at large. 4 



During his first term of curatorship (1881-1884), 

 Dr. Flint devoted much of his time to sorting, examin- 

 ing, identifying, and classifying the materia medica 

 specimens. 5 In 1881, he issued a memorandum of 

 instructions to be followed by collectors of drugs 

 and urged them to give detailed and accurate in- 

 formation regarding acquired specimens so that they 

 might be •"more than mere museum curiosities." 

 In addition, in 1883, he prepared a brief manual 

 of classification of the materia medica collection in the 

 Museum as well as a useful, detailed catalog of 

 informational labels of the individual objects on 

 exhibition. The unpublished catalog is still the 

 property of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, 

 Division of Medical Sciences' Library. 



It was Dr. Flint's ambition to obtain a compre- 

 hensive, worldwide collection of all substances used 

 as remedies. Then, in order to identify drugs from 

 fori i ■ • 1 1 countries, he tried to collect illustrated works 

 on medical botany and printed pharmacopoeias of 

 all nations having them. I le rightly defined an official 

 pharmacopoeia as "a book containing directions for 

 the identification and preparation of medicines pre- 

 pared and issued with the sanction of a government 



or organized and authorized medical and pharma- 

 ceutical societies. Its purpose is to establish uni- 

 formity in the nomenclature of remedies and in the 

 character and potency of the pharmaceutical prep- 

 arations. It is enacted by legislation, and thus 

 becomes binding on all who prepare drugs or sell 

 them for medication." By soliciting the help of 

 various American consuls and Navy officers abroad, 

 about 16 such official pharmacopoeias were collected, 

 making an almost complete international representa- 

 tion of all available, official, drug standards. With 

 these sources of information, Dr. Flint compiled and 

 arranged an international list of materia medica speci- 

 mens, indicating the authorized preparations of 

 each. By so doing, the first curator of this Section 

 took the initiative at least in proposing and, to some 

 extent acting, on the preparation of an international 

 pharmacopoeia of drugs used in existing authorized 

 formularies giving "official synonyms, and tables 

 showing the constituents and comparative strength 

 of all preparations." 6 This undertaking is of special 

 importance in the history of American pharmacy, 

 since it was probably the first attempt of its kind in 

 the United States. 7 In addition, colored plates and 

 photographs of medicinal plants were collected, 

 forming the nucleus of the Division's current collec- 

 tion of pictorial and photographic material related 

 to the history of the health field. 



Dr. Flint also put on exhibition 630 Chinese ma- 

 teria medica specimens from the 1876 Philadelphia cen- 

 tennial. These had been collected originally by the 

 Chinese Imperial Customs Commission for the cen- 

 tennial and were subsequently given to this country. 



' Annual Report of tin' Secretary oj tin Van fm (In \rm 7\,v.J, 

 pp. 190, 614-615. 



5 For classifying chemical compounds, Dr. Flint relied on the 

 work of II. E. Roscoe and C Schorlemmez, .1 Tree 

 Chen . ! vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1878-1800.) 



6 Annual Report of the Secretary oj the Havy foi the year 1882, 

 vol. 2, part 2, pp. 100, 228, 656-657. Dr. Flint in his article 

 "Report on Pharmacopoeias of All Nations," ibid., pp. 655- 

 680, remarks that there were then 19 official pharmacopoeias 

 in the world, besides three semiofficial formularies in certain 

 localities in Italy. The pharmacopoeias collected represent 



Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, 

 Holland, India, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, 

 Switzerland (two), and the United States. 



7 The Universal Formulary, by R. Eglesfeld Griffith, first edited 

 in March 1850 (3rd ed. rev. and enlarged by John M. Maisch, 

 Philadelphia: Lea, 1874) should not be considered an inter- 

 national drug standard. It was mainly concerned with com- 

 piling a great number of formulas and recipes, methods of 

 preparing and administering official and other medicines, and 

 tables on weights and measures for utilization by the U.S. prac- 

 titioners of the time. 



274 



mi. I.F.TIN 240: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



