72 
‘ ” 
Webster's Dictionary (2nd 
edition, 1943) explains that the “Low German droge vate refers 
‘drogue’ signifying ‘a dry herb.’ 
to dry casks, goods in packing cases, in which ‘droge’ was wrongly 
taken to mean their contents.” The word would seem to be related 
to the German trocken, meaning dry. According to Hatzfeld and 
Darmesteter’s Dictionnaire of the French language, the word 
drogue dates from the 14th century. Its source from the Dutch 
word droog (any dry thing) is, according to Hatzfeld and Darme- 
steter, doubted by some etymologists. 
The word druggist, as applied to a seller of drugs, was not com- 
monly used until about the loth century. In England there are 
’ ” 
no “drug stores.” The ‘“‘chemist’s shop” is the drug store. In 
France it is the pharmacie, or apothicaireric. he title droguiste 
is used there for a seller of dried herbs only. 
It is worth noting that the word “drug” often connotes a poison- 
ous substance, as in the following, from Macbeth, ii—2: 
The doors are open: and the surfeited grooms 
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugged their possets. 
This is evidently because some drugs are strong poisons, as, for 
example, strychnine, aconite, morphine, cocaine. However, there 
are many others which are mild and pleasant, and have no poison- 
ous qualities, e.g. licorice, rosemary, lavender, sassafras. Some of 
these are valuable drugs, because their pleasant odor or taste is 
used in prescriptions to mask the disagreeable taste of other drugs. 
The layman would not think of calling rose petals a drug, and yet 
rose water, distilled from the fresh flowers of Rosa centifolia, is 
well recognized in medicine as a pleasant vehicle, masking the 
flavor and odor of unpleasant drugs. 
The Greek word for drug is pharmakon. Hence we have 
pharmacist and pharmacy (i.e. the art of preparing medicines ; 

also, a drug store); pharmacognosy (from pharmakon + gnosis, 

knowing), the science of the recognition of drugs; pharmaceutic 
or pharmaceutical (meaning pertaining to pharmacy, from. the 

Greek pharmakeus or pharmakeutes, druggist), and pharmacopoeia 
(Greek phariakon +- poiein, to make), a book, generally authori- 
tative, containing a collection of recipes or formulas for the prepa- 
ration of medicines. 
