ONTARIO 



COLLEGE OF PHARfMCY 



-44 GERRARD ST. E. 

 TORONTO. 



PREFACE 



As physicians do not themselves prepare the medicines they 

 exhibit to their patients, it is very convenient for them to inti- 

 mate to the neighbouring retailers, whom the sick employ for 

 this purpose, the medicines they are likely to order, and the 

 mode in which they wish certain compounds, that require time 

 for their preparation, should be kept ready in the shops: this, 

 and this alone, is the true office of a Pharmacopoeia. And indeed 

 the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, in the Preface to their Codex 

 Medicamentarius, or Pharmacopoeia, expressly disclnim any 

 intention of hindering practitioners from using other remedies, or 

 ishopkeepers from keeping other articles, besides what are men- 

 jtioned by them ; and further observe, that they have inserted 

 several popular medicines, although not likely to be ordered by 

 the faculty themselves, in order that they may be uniformly pre- 

 pared, and of course uniform in their action. 



Before the publication of local Pharmacopoeias, the apothe- 

 caries kept in their shops the six following books : Avicenna on 

 Simples ; Serapion on the same subject ; Simon Januensis De 

 Synonymis, and his Quid pro Quo on Substitutes; the Liber 

 Servitoris of Bulchasim Ben Aberazerin, treating of the prepa- 

 ration of minerals, plants, and animals, similar to the chemical 

 part of the modem Pharmacopoeias; the Antidotarium of Jo- 

 hannes Damascenus or Mesue, arranged in classes like the 

 Galenical part of our present Pharmacopoeias ; and the Antido- 

 tarium of Nicolaus dc Salerno, containing these Galenical com- 

 pounds, arranged alphabetically, of which there were two editions 

 in use : in the common edition, or Nicolaus Parvus, as it was 

 called, several of the compositions of the Nicolaus Magnus were 



