A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, pharmacopœia), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound medicines. These are published or sanctioned by a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society, giving the work legal authority within a specified jurisdiction. In a broader sense it is a collection of pharmaceutical drug specifications. Descriptions of the individual preparations are called monographs.
There are national, supranational, and international pharmacopoeias.
Etymology The term derives from "making of (healing) medicine, drug-making", a compound of "medicine, drug, poison" (), with the verb "to make" (), and the abstract noun suffix -ία -ia., . In early modern editions of Latin texts, the Greek diphthong οι (oi) is latinized to its Latin equivalent oe which is in turn written with the ligature œ, giving the spelling pharmacopœia; in modern British English, œ is written as oe, giving the spelling pharmacopoeia, while in American English oe becomes e, resulting in pharmacopeia. The plural form is pharmacopoeiae, pharmacopoeias, or pharmacopeias.
Early history
Although older writings exist which deal with herbal medicine, the major initial work in the field is considered to be the Edwin Smith Papyrus in Egypt, Pliny's pharmacopoeia.
A number of early pharmacopoeia books were written by Persian and Arab physicians.Philip K. Hitti (cf. Kasem Ajram (1992), Miracle of Islamic Science, Appendix B, Knowledge House Publishers. ). These included The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna in 1025 AD, and works by Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) in the 12th century (and printed in 1491), and Ibn Baytar in the 14th century. The Shen-nung pen ts'ao ching (Divine Husbandman's Materia Medica) is the earliest known Chinese pharmacopoeia. The text describes 365 medicines derived from plants, animals, and minerals; according to legend it was written by the Chinese god Shennong. One of the earliest surviving pharmacopoeias from medieval Europe is the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, which dates to around 800, and draws on classical and post-classical sources.
Pharmacopeial synopsis were recorded in the Timbuktu manuscripts of Mali.Djian, Jean-Michel (24 May 2007). Timbuktu manuscripts: Africa's written history unveiled . Unesco, ID 37896.
China The earliest extant Chinese pharmacopoeia, the Shennong Ben Cao Jing was compiled between 200–250 AD. It contains descriptions of 365 medications.
The earliest known officially sponsored pharmacopoeia was compiled in 659 AD by a team of 23 pharmaceutical scientists led by Su jing during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) and was called the Xinxiu bencao (Newly Revised Canon of Material Medical). The work consists of 20 volumes with one dedicated to the table of contents, and 25 volumes of pictures with one volume dedicated to the table of contents. A third part consisting of seven volumes contained illustrated descriptions. The text contains descriptions of 850 medicines with 114 new ones. The work was used throughout China for the next 400 years.
City pharmacopoeias A dated work appeared in Nuremberg in 1542; a passing student Valerius Cordus showed a collection of medical prescriptions, which he had selected from the writings of the most eminent medical authorities, to the physicians of the town, who urged him to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and obtained the sanction of the senatus for his work. A work known as the Antidotarium Florentinum, was published under the authority of the college of medicine of Florence in the 16th century. In 1511, the Concordie Apothecariorum Barchinone was published by the Society of Apothecaries of Barcelona and kept in the School of Pharmacy of the University of Barcelona.
The term Pharmacopoeia first appears as a distinct title in a work published at Basel, Switzerland, in 1561 by A. Foes, but does not appear to have come into general use until the beginning of the 17th century.
Before 1542, the works principally used by apothecaries were the treatises on simples (basic medicinal ingredients) by Avicenna and Serapion; the De synonymis and Quid pro quo of Simon Januensis; the Liber servitoris of Bulchasim Ben Aberazerim, which described preparations made from plants, animals, and minerals, and was the type of the chemical portion of modern pharmacopoeias; and the Antidotarium of Nicolaus de Salerno, containing Galenic formulations arranged alphabetically. Of this last work, there were two editions in use — Nicolaus magnus and Nicolaus parvus: in the latter, several of the compounds described in the large edition were omitted and the formulae given on a smaller scale.
Also Vesalius claimed he had written some "dispensariums" and "manuals" on the works of Galenus. Apparently he burnt them. According to recent research communicated at the congresses of the International Society for the History of Medicine by the scholar Francisco Javier González Echeverría,Michael Servetus Research Website with graphical study on the pharmacopoeia Dispensarium by Servetus1998 "The 'Dispensarium' or 'Enquiridion' the complementary work of the Dioscorides, both by Servetus" and "The book of work of Michael Servetus for his Dioscorides and his 'Dispensarium'". González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Program of the congress and abstracts of the communications, XI National Congress on History of Medicine, Santiago de Compostela, University of Santiago de Compostela, pp. 83–84.1998 "The book of work of Michael Servetus for his Dioscorides and his Dispensarium"(Le livre de travail de Michel Servet pour ses Dioscorides et Dispensarium) and "The Dispensarium or Enquiridion, complementary of the Dioscorides of Michael Servetus" ( The Enquiridion, L’oeuvre Le Dispensarium ou Enquiridion complémentaire sur le Dioscorides de Michel Servet) González Echeverría, in: Book of summaries, 36th International Congress on the History of Medicine, Tunis (Livre des Résumés, 36ème Congrès International d’Histoire de la médicine, Tunis), 6–11 September 1998, (two comunicacions), pp. 199, 210. Michel De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus) also published a pharmacopoeia. De Villeneuve, fellow student of Vesalius and the best galenist of Paris according to Johann Winter von Andernach,2011 "The love for truth. Life and work of Michael Servetus", (El amor a la verdad. Vida y obra de Miguel Servet.), Francisco Javier González Echeverría, Francisco Javier, printed by Navarro y Navarro, Zaragoza, collaboration with the Government of Navarra, Department of Institutional Relations and Education of the Government of Navarra, 607 pp. 64 of them illustrations, pp. 194–204 published the anonymous "Dispensarium or Enquiridion" in 1543, at Lyon, France, with Jean Frellon as editor. This work contains 224 original recipes by De Villeneuve and others by Lespleigney and Chappuis. As usual when it comes to pharmacopoeias, this work was complementary to a previous Materia Medica1996 " An unpublished work of Michael Servetus : The Dioscorides or Medical Matter from Sesma". González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Panacea Ed. College of Doctors of Navarra. Castuera Ed, Pamplona p. 44.1996 "Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter : an unknown work of Michael Servetus (I)" and " Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter: an unknown work of Michael Servetus (II)" González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. In : Book of Abstracts. 35th International Congress on the History of Medicine, 2nd–8th, September, 1996, Kos Island, Greece, communications nº: 6 y 7, p. 4.1997 "Michael Servetus, editor of the Dioscorides", González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Institute of Sijenienses Studies "Michael Servetus" ed, Villanueva de Sijena, Larrosa ed and "Ibercaja", Zaragoza.2001 " An attributable Spanish work to Michael Servetus: 'The Dioscorides of Sesma' ". González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Varia Histórico – Médica. Edition coordinated by : Jesús Castellanos Guerrero (coord.), Isabel Jiménez Lucena, María José Ruiz Somavilla y Pilar Gardeta Sabater. Minutes from the X Congress on History of Medicine, February 1986, Málaga. Printed by Imagraf, Málaga, pp. 37–55. that De Villeneuve published that same year. This finding was communicated by the same scholar in the International Society for the History of Medicine,2011 September 9, Francisco González Echeverría VI International Meeting for the History of Medicine, (S-11: Biographies in History of Medicine (I)), Barcelona.New Discoveries on the biography of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus) & New discoverys on the work of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus) VI Meeting of the International Society for the History of Medicine with agreement of John M. Riddle, one of the foremost experts on Materia Medica-Dioscorides works.
Nicolaes Tulp, mayor of Amsterdam and respected surgeon general, gathered all of his doctor and chemist friends together and they wrote the first pharmacopoeia of Amsterdam named Pharmacopoea Amstelredamensis in 1636. This was a combined effort to improve public health after an outbreak of the bubonic plague, and also to limit the number of quack apothecary shops in Amsterdam.
London, Edinburgh, Dublin Until 1617, such drugs and medicines as were in common use were sold in England by the apothecaries and grocers. In that year the apothecaries obtained a separate charter, and it was enacted that no grocer should keep an apothecary's shop. The preparation of physicians' prescriptions was thus confined to the apothecaries, upon whom pressure was brought to bear to make them dispense accurately, by the issue of a pharmacopoeia in May 1618 by the College of Physicians, and by the power which the wardens of the apothecaries received in common with the censors of the College of Physicians of examining the shops of apothecaries within of London and destroying all the compounds which they found unfaithfully prepared. This, the first authorized London Pharmacopoeia, was selected chiefly from the works of Mezue and Nicolaus de Salerno, but it was found to be so full of errors that the whole edition was cancelled, and a fresh edition was published in the following December.
At this period the compounds employed in medicine were often heterogeneous mixtures, some of which contained from 20 to 70, or more, ingredients, while a large number of simples were used in consequence of the same substance being supposed to possess different qualities according to the source from which it was derived. Thus crabs' eyes (i.e., gastroliths), pearls, oyster shells, and coral were supposed to have different properties. Among other ingredients entering into some of these formulae were the excrements of human beings, dogs, mice, geese, and other animals, calculi, human skull, and moss growing on it, blind puppies, earthworms, etc.
Although other editions of the London Pharmacopoeia were issued in 1621, 1632, 1639, and 1677, it was not until the edition of 1721, published under the auspices of Sir Hans Sloane, that any important alterations were made. In this issue many of the remedies previously in use were omitted, although a good number were still retained, such as dogs' excrement, earthworms, and moss from the human skull; the botanical names of herbal remedies were for the first time added to the official ones; the simple distilled waters were ordered of a uniform strength; sweetened spirits, cordials and ratafias were omitted as well as several compounds no longer used in London, although still in vogue elsewhere. A great improvement was effected in the edition published in 1746, in which only those preparations were retained which had received the approval of the majority of the pharmacopoeia committee; to these was added a list of those drugs only which were supposed to be the most efficacious. An attempt was made to simplify further the older formulae by the rejection of superfluous ingredients.