R. Pulv. Com. gr. iii Ipecacuanhæ
(With more besides if Juan had not stopp’d ’em).
Bolus Potassæ Sulphuret sumendus,
Et haustus ter in die capiendus.
Byron: Don Juan, Canto x (41).
The London Pharmacopœia.
The collection of medicinal formulas was a favourite occupation of ancient medical writers. Galen and Avicenna, Mesué and Serapion, Nicholas Prepositus and Nicolas of Salerno were the authors of the dispensatories most esteemed up to the sixteenth century in Europe. The College of Medicine of Florence adopted an Antidotarium in the early part of that century, and in 1524 the Senate of Nuremberg made the Dispensatory of Valerius Cordus official in that city. Augsburg followed the example of Nuremberg, and the Pharmacopea Augustana of 1601 was probably the first work of the kind designated a Pharmacopœia and issued under authoritative sanction. A quasi-official Dispensatorium for the State of Brandenburg, forerunner of the Prussian Pharmacopœia, came next in 1608, and the London Pharmacopœia, which appeared in 1618, was the first really national publication of that character. The first French Codex was published in 1639, and no other work of similar standing was issued until the next century.
The College of Physicians was incorporated by Charter in the reign of Henry VIII, in the year 1518. The idea of preparing an official pharmacopœia was first considered by the College on June 25th, 1585, “but as the matter seemed weighty” (sed quoniam res videbatur operosa), the deliberation on it was postponed and was only resumed on October 10th, 1589. On this occasion ten committees were appointed and to these were assigned the work of selection and compilation distributed thus:—Committee 1 was charged with Syrups, Juleps, and Decoctions; 2 took Oils; 3, Waters; 4, Liniments, Ointments, Cerates, and Plasters; 5, Juices, Conserves, Candies, and Confections; 6, Extracts, Salts, Chemicals, and Metallic Preparations; 7, Powders and Dragees; 8, Pills; 9, Electuaries, Opiates, and Eclegmas (looches); 10, Lozenges and Eye-salves.
The work must have been carried on leisurely, for it is not mentioned in the minutes again until 1614, when eight fellows were appointed to examine certain foreign Antidotarii. In 1616, an editing committee was appointed, and all the collaborators were called upon to send their papers to this body. It then appeared that many which had been prepared had been lost, a misfortune attributed to the carelessness of the recently deceased President, Dr. Forster. His successor, Dr. Atkins, put more energy into the business and consequently the manuscript was completed and in type by the day after Palm Sunday, 1618. Sir Theodore Mayerne was commissioned to write a dedication of the work to King James I, and his Majesty’s proclamation requiring all the apothecaries in the realm to obey this Pharmacopœia and this only, was dated April 26th, 1618. It will be observed that exactly a century intervened between the incorporation of the College and the production of the Pharmacopœia.
The President was evidently a smart man, but the printer was still smarter, for while the former was out of town for a few days the printer rushed the publication through, “surreptitiously and prematurely,” as the College officially declared, with a number of errors and imperfections, on May 7th, 1618. This presumptuous printer was one John Marriot, at the inappropriate sign of the White Lily “in platea vulgo dicta Fleet Street.” On December 7th in the same year the College brought out a corrected edition, to which they appended an epilogue, expressing their opinion of their offending “typographus” in terms which left no excuse for not appreciating their dissatisfaction with him.