A draught for the reformation of the London pharmacopoeia, prepared for the perusal of the members of the College of Physicians, by their committee appointed to that purpose.

  • Royal College of Physicians of London
Date:
[1742]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A draught for the reformation of the London pharmacopoeia, prepared for the perusal of the members of the College of Physicians, by their committee appointed to that purpose. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a fmall addition to the myrrh, to take away the like number from the nardus Indica, and add about as many to the united articles of cinnamon and cafia. By this means, with neglecting a grain or two in the red of the broken numbers, the proportions here be¬ come as fimple, as in the other compofition. But it mud be obferved, that the proportions of the ingre¬ dients of the trochifci cypheos are adjuded from the ori¬ ginal defcription in Galen *: our numbers are very eironeous. The trochifci de fcilia for the theriaca are retained, becaufe it is intended to continue the ancient form of udng baked fquills; and the making them up after baking intq troches with flower feems to be the mod convenient way of drying them: we have directed common wheat flower, that being mod at hand, and as fit for the purpofe as any other. The original of Fhilonium has alfo been confulted, which is a much lefs operofe compofition than that in our Pharmacopoeia f. But in reje&ing the additional ingredients a confideration occurred, that it became a flronger opiate, which it was feared might be attended with fome inconvenience. However the remedy was eafy, only to vary the ancient form by reducing the quantity of the opium, fo that it might bear the fame proportion to the whole, as it does at prefent. In lenitive elecluary the boiling a few drams of prunes and tamarinds in water to be added after¬ wards to a large quantity of the pulp of the fame fruits in fubdance was an abfurdity too grofs for the committee to pafs over. They have corrected this compofition * De Antld. L. 2. c z. t Galen, de Compofit. Medicament, fecund lac. I, 9. c. 4.