Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Sept.  19 19. 
Pharmacy  as  a  Hobby. 
601 
of  intrepid  explorers,  of  pioneers  and  colonizers  of  lands  newly  dis- 
covered, of  fortunes  gained  and  lost,  of  mystery,  superstition  and 
witchcraft,  of  comedy  and  of  tragedy,  which  are  associated  with 
some  of  even  our  commonest  drugs,  would  make  even  a  reader  who 
read  only  for  entertainment  and  stimulation,  not  for  improvement, 
forsake  the  most  daring  writers  of  fiction. 
From  the  Babylonians,  that  ancient  race  of  mystery  and  culture, 
come  the  names  of  some  of  our  most  important  metals,  names  by 
them  on  account  of  their  fancied  association  with,  or  influence  de- 
rived from,  the  better  known  heavenly  bodies.  Most  of  these  names 
are  only  encountered  in  little  used  synonyms ;  as  crocus  Martis  for 
ferric  oxide;  sassharum  Saturni  for  sugar  of  lead;  lunar  caustic  for 
silver  nitrate ;  but  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  planetary  name 
Mercury  still  persists  for  this  most  commonly  used  name  of  one  of 
our  metals,  whose  compounds  are  of  medicinal  importance  and 
value. 
Passing  along  the  shelves  of  any  pharmacy  and  picking  out  at 
random  from  the  titles  those  of  more  than  passing  interest,  we  find 
one  of  our  best  known  cosmetic  creams,  the  ointment  of  rosewater 
or  cold  cream,  credited  as  to  its  origin,  to  Galen,  one  of  the  fathers 
of  pharmacy,  who  lived  at  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  Era, 
and  for  centuries  this  preparation  was  called  ceratum  Galeni. 
Galen's  influence  upon  pharmacy  and  medicine  was  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  single  human  being  who  ever  lived,  or  probably 
will  live.  His  teachings  held  almost  undisputed  sway  for  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  years,  during  part  of  which  time,  in  some  parts  of 
the  world,  pharmacists  and  physicians  were  required  to  pledge  them- 
selves to  follow  his  teachings  and  practice  blindly  and  implicitly. 
The  names  of  many  others  of  the  preparations  and  substances 
used  in  pharmacy  are  of  interest  in  their  origin  and  development. 
Hiera  picra  means  "  sacred  bitters,"  evidencing  the  esteem  in  which 
it  was  once  held.  Sal  ammoniac  derives  its  name  from  the  fact  that 
it  was  found  in  the  sands  of  the  Lybian  Desert  near  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Ammon,  resulting  from  the  decomposition  of  camel  urine 
due  to  the  many  caravans  which  stopped  at  that  point.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  Arabians  upon  pharmacy  may  be  traced  through  the 
nomenclature;  the  words  beginning  with  al  (and  sometimes  el) 
being  of  Arabic  origin,  as  alkali,  elixir,  alcohol,  etc.  In  the  case  of 
the  name  alcohol  the  Arabic  word  means  finely  divided  and  was  first 
applied  to  easily  diffusible  volatile  liquids  and  finally  to  the  specific 
substance  alcohol. 
