THE PHARMACOPOEIA. 3 



and preparation, the extraction of their active prin- 

 ciples, and the combination of these with others. 

 More recently pharmacology has come to be used in a I 

 wider sense, and to include the whole subject of ma-! 

 teria medica and therapeutics, for which it is a short \ 

 and convenient term. 



Pharmacy is the name applied to the art which | 

 corresponds with the science of pharmacology, the art I 

 of making the preparations indicated or ordered by I 

 the pharmacologist, and of dispensing the combinations' 

 prescribed by the therapeutist. In such a work as' 

 the present, the details of pharmacy must be mainly 

 omitted. They have to be learned practically in the 

 dispensary or pharmaceutical laboratory, not by rote 

 from a book. 



The .Pliarmacopcria. The number of drugs 

 used from time immemorial is enormous, and compara- 

 tively few are now believed to be really useful, To 

 separate the valuable materice medicce from those sup- 

 posed to be worthless, books have been published from 

 time to time by the governments or medical authori- 

 ties of different countries, which furnish an authorita- 

 tive list of the drugs generally recognised and used by 

 the profession, and the preparations made from them, 

 which have thus become "officinal" or official. These 

 books are known as pharmacopoeias (<f)dp/j,afcov, a 

 drug, and iroiew, / make). In this country we have 

 the British Pharmacopoeia, which provides us with a 

 tolerably accurate list of the drugs and preparations 

 in use at the time of its publication. But as pharma- 

 cology is a rapidly-advancing science, especially from 

 the direction of chemistry and pharmacodynamics, and 

 as opinion is very unsettled on the subject of thera- 

 peutics, the pharmacopoeias of different countries ditir 

 greatly ; and the pharmacopoeia of any given country 

 neither is accepted at the time of its publican^t 

 perfect in itself and to be followed : s an article of 



