373 
REVIEW. 
PHARMACOPOEIA. OF INDIA. 
Prepared under the Authority of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India in 
Council. By Edward John Waring, M.D., Member of the Royal 
College of Physicians of London, Surgeon in Her Majesty's Indian Army. 
Assisted by a Committee Appointed for the Purpose. India Office. 1868. 
London : W. H. Allen and Co., 13, Waterloo Place, Publishers to the 
India Office. 
The Pharmacopoeia of India, as we are informed in the preface, has been pre¬ 
pared— 
“ With the view, firstly, of bringing to the notice of the profession, in India, those indi¬ 
genous drugs which experience has proved to possess value as medicinal agents, and 
which may be employed as efficient substitutes for imported articles; and, secondly, of 
remodelling the Bengal Pharmacopoeia of 1844. Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for 
India in Council was pleased to sanction the publication of a Pharmacopoeia for India, 
based upon the British Pharmacopoeia, which, while affording all the information con¬ 
tained in that work of practical use in India, would embody and combine with it such 
supplementary matter of special value in that country, as should adapt it to meet the 
requirements of the Indian Medical Department.” 
In order to carry out these views, and to superintend the preparation of the 
work, the following Committee was organized: — 
Inspector-General of Hospitals Sir J. Ranald Martin, C.B., F.R.S., Presi¬ 
dent ; Sir William O’Shaughnessy Brooke, M.D., F.R.S.; Alexander Gibson, 
Esq., F.L.S.; Daniel Hanbury, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S.; Thomas Thomson, M.D., 
F.R.S. ; John Forbes Watson, M.D., M.A., F.L.S.; Robert Wight, M.D., 
F.R.S.; Edward John Waring, M.D., M.R.C.P., F.L.S., Editor. From the 
above list of names it will be seen that the work has been prepared under the 
most favourable circumstances, and we naturally expect a volume worthy of the 
high reputations of the authors. 
In carrying out the work entrusted to them, the Committee have, we think, 
exercised a sound discretion in adopting the double system of chemical nota¬ 
tion as employed in the British Pharmacopoeia, as also the weights and measures 
of that volume, for in such particulars there should be absolute uniformity in all 
Pharmacopoeias published in the British Empire ; though whether the best mode 
of arranging the materials at command has been decided upon will doubtless 
elicit some difference of opinion ; bub in order to give our readers a clear idea 
of the arrangement adopted, and the reasons which led to that arrangement, we 
will extract the following paragraphs from the preface:— 
“The best mode of arranging the materials at command received at the outset the 
most careful consideration, and it was ultimately decided to divide the articles into two 
classes, viz., ‘Officinal ’ and ‘Non-officinalthe first to include those articles officinal in 
the British Pharmacopoeia, together with those indigenous products of India, whose 
claims as medicinal agents are established on a solid basis; the second, or Non-officinal 
list, to comprise a large number of articles whose reputation is not so well established, 
but which, possessing considerable activity, are deemed worthy of attention. In addi¬ 
tion to these, there have been included a few drugs respecting which, either from their 
high repute amongst the natives, or from marked physical characters, it is desirable to 
obtain further information. Some of the articles in this class will doubtless, on trial, 
prove worthless, and will justly be discarded in future editions; whilst others, it is ex¬ 
pected, will prove valuable remedial agents, and worthy of being eventually transferred 
to the officinal class. 
“After much deliberation, it was likewise determined to depart from the alphabetical 
arrangements usually employed in Pharmacopoeias, and to adopt one based on a scientific 
classification, as being better adapted for bringing to notice the numerous articles of 
Materia Medica to which it was deemed desirable to call attention. 
