The new dispensatory: containing, I. The elements of pharmacy. II. The materia medica ... III. The preparations and compositions of the new London and Edinburgh pharmacopoeias / [William Lewis].

  • Lewis, William, 1708-1781
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The new dispensatory: containing, I. The elements of pharmacy. II. The materia medica ... III. The preparations and compositions of the new London and Edinburgh pharmacopoeias / [William Lewis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the diiiribution of thefc materials, it has been found neceffary to depart from the order hitherto received. In other difpenfatories, and in a former edition of this, medicines are divided into two ge- neral heads, officinal and extemporaneous. This divifion is apparently faulty: for many of thofe called officinal are ftridtly extemporaneous, being made only as they are wanted : and many of thofe, which are called extemporaneous, are very well fitted for keeping : if we fhould appropriate the term officinal to thofe which have the fandtion of public colleges, then this abfurdity would follow, that me- dicines of as tedious preparation as any in the book, even Baume’s extract of opium, which requires fe- veral months continual boiling, would be extempo- raneous preparations. To avoid this impropriety, and that of repeating the fame forms, and frequently almofl the fame compofitions, in different parts of the book; I have ranged medicines of iimilar preparation or compo-* fition in one clafs, without regard to the ineffential * circumftances of their being ufed at London or at Edinburgh, at Paris or at Berlin, in the fhops or in the hofpitals; and have endeavoured to difpofe them in fuch a manner, as to form, fo far as could be done with fuch materials, one regular whole, a connected fyftem of practical pharmacy. That the medicines of the London and Edinburgh colleges may be the more readily known from the others, their titles are printed in a larger character. The diffindlion, indeed, between preparations and com- pofitions, the former of which make the third part, and the latter the fourth, is not perhaps altogether unexceptionable, confidering the great multiplicity and diverfity of the fubjedts, many of which par- 7 taka