■^TpriW92o:}  Comments  on  Magendie's  Formulary,  217 
ists  and  physicians  as  will  soon  be  seen  by  a  discussion  of  some  of  the 
details  of  its  subject  matter.  Its  translator,  Robley  Dunglison,  M.D., 
was  widely  known  as  a  medical  author  in  the  early  part  of  the  last 
century  and  published  a  medical  dictionary  which  attained  great 
popularity  and  went  through  many  editions. 
The  title  page  itself  is  noteworthy  for  it  is  called  a  "Formulary 
for  the  Preparation  and  Mode  of  Employing  Several  New  Remedies : 
namely,  Morphine,  Iodine,  Quinine,  Cinchonine,  The  Hydrocyanic 
Acid,  Narcotine,  Strychnine,  Nux  Vomica,  Emetine,  Atropine, 
Picrotoxine,  Brucine,  Lupuline,  etc.,  etc." 
To  place  oneself  in  the  mental  attitude  of  a  period  in  which  Mor- 
phine, Iodine,  Quinine,  etc.,  are  heralded  as  new  remedies  requires 
some  intellectual  exertion,  but  fortunately  the  translator  in  his  preface 
makes  this  easier  by  the  quaintness  of  his  language  and  the  ingenuous- 
ness and  frankness  of  his  views  and  expressions. 
He  states :  "Great  credit  is  due  to  the  French  chemists,  and  espe- 
cially to  M.  M.  Pelletier  and  Caventou,  for  having  discovered  that 
the  active  principle  of  several  of  our  chief  remedies  resides  in  peculiar 
alkalis;  and  also  for  isolating  these  alkalis  so  that  they  may  be  used 
in  practice  according  to  a  determinate  and  intelligent  principle. 
Great  praise  is  also  due  to  M.  Magendie  for  the  indefatigable  way 
in  which  he  has  investigated  the  action  of  these  new  alkalis  on  the 
human  body." 
Here  already  we  see  evidences  of  the  transferring  from  pharmacy 
to  chemistry  the  credit  for  worthy  achievements,  for  Joseph  Bienaime 
Caventou  (i 795-1 877)  and  Joseph  Pelletier  (i 788-1 842)  were  prom- 
inent pharmacists  of  their  day  in  their  native  city  of  Paris.  In 
1820  when  these  two  brilliant  pharmaceutical  workers  discovered  and 
named  quinine,  Pelletier  was  32  and  Caventou  25  years  of  age. 
In  those  days  many  important  and  epoch  making  discoveries  were 
made  by  comparatively  young  men.  Wohler  who  revolutionized 
synthetic  chemistry  a  few  years  later  by  the  transformation  of  am- 
monium cyanate  into  urea,  was  only  28  years  old  at  the  time  of  this 
discovery. 
Continuing,  the  translator  says:  "To  druggists  and  to  operative 
apothecaries  it  must  be  acceptable  to  have  thus  collected  a  full  ac- 
count of  the  mode  of  preparing  these  different  alkalis." 
This  would  indicate  a  more  specific  and  distinctive  use  of  these 
terms  than  is  now  accorded  them.  It  is  probable  that  the  distinction 
lay  in  the  fact  that  druggists  were  simply  dispensers  while  operative 
apothecaries  manufactured  as  well  as  dispensed. 
