MATERIA MEDICA AND PHARMACY. DEFINITIONS. Materia Medica.-The materials used in the treatment of disease. Pharmacy. The art of preparing drugs in a form suitable for use as remedial agents and of dispensing them. Pharmacopoeia.-A code of remedial agents, usually with descriptions, definitions or directions, prepared by experts appointed by an authority of some kind, and intended to serve as a standard until superseded by a new one. By admitting certain articles to its pages, it declares them to be of importance, through the extent of their use, or to be entitled to confidence because of their value, or both, in the practice of medicine, but does not, necessarily, deny these properties to articles not admitted. It fixes their official title or titles, and often their leading synonym or synonyms. Usually it defines them, describes them with sufficient completeness to provide for identification and determination of the proper degree of purity, or strength, or both, and details and recommends such operations in preparing them as pertain to a dispensing pharmacy. It may, in addition, fix or limit doses and provide rules, formulæ, tables, and other information and directions of importance in the practice of pharmacy and medicine. It also fixes a date upon which its authority shall commence. Everything contained in the United States Pharmacopoeia (abbreviation "U. S. P.") is said to be "official." "Not official," as used in this work, refers only to the U. S. P. Many drugs and preparations are so designated which are, however, official in the British Pharmacopoeia (abbreviation "B. P."). The United States Pharmacopoeia is prepared by a committee, meeting at the beginning of each decade, consisting of delegates appointed by invitation, extended by the President of the preceding Convention, to all incorporated medical and pharmaceutical societies and medical and pharmaceutical colleges, and to the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Hospital Service. By Congressional action the U. S. P. is made a legal authority in the conduct of the Department of Customs, of the Army, Navy, and Marine Hospital Service, and of the District of Columbia and other Territories within the jurisdiction of the United States laws. By legislative enactment it is also made a legal authority within the jurisdiction of many States. With these exceptions its authority is but moral. The present edition, which is the first to contain doses, became official in 1905. PHARMACY. Pharmacy covers a field of nearly as much importance, breadth and difficulty as that of medicine itself, and requires a special, extensive and thorough preparation. It should never be practiced by the physician, when the services of a competent manufacturing or dispensing pharmacist can be utilized. The physician should, however, be acquainted with the general principles and most details of the science and art of Pharmacy, that he may judge intelligently of the services rendered him by the pharmacist, and also be prepared to act with safety himself in cases of emergency. A pharmaceutical education to this extent, accompanied by dispensary practice, should be provided for in every thorough course of medical study. The more important terms pertaining to Pharmacy are defined and explained below. DEFINITION OF TERMS AS APPLIED TO SUBSTANCES OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN. Alkaloids. (Their English names terminating in ine, their Latin names terminating in ina.) Compounds of carbon, hydro gen and nitrogen and usually containing also oxygen, either existing in the plant as proximate principles, or being derived from other alkaloids, having basic properties, and forming salts, usually crystallizable, with acids, without displacing any of the hydrogen of the latter. The chief characters are as follows: (1) Either (a) solid, mostly crystalline and colorless, non-volatile, or (2) They turn red litmus paper blue. (3) They are soluble in alcohol, chloroform, petroleum benzin, benzene, and often in ether. They are insoluble in water, but not so their salts, while the latter are insoluble in chloroform, ether, petroleum benzin and benzene. (4) They are usually precipitated from saline solution by alkalies. (5) One or more of the following will precipitate them: tannic, phosphomolybdic or picric acid, potassio-mercuric iodide chloride. (6) Their solutions are usually intensely bitter. or auric Alkaloids are, as a class, the most energetic and important medicinal constituents of plants. Examples in U. S. P.: Atropine, Morphine, Strychnine. Glucosides. (Their English names terminating in in, their Latin names terminating in inum.) Bodies which, heated with a diluted mineral acid and water, or by the action of a ferment, split up into glucose and some other substances (alcohols, aldehydes, phenols). Examples in U. S. P.: Salicinum, Strophanthinum. Amaroids or Bitter Principles (their names ending in in and inum as above) are of such varied nature that they do not admit of any chemical diagnosis. The term includes all distinctly bitter extractives of definite chemical composition other than alkaloids and glucosides. Glucosides and Amaroids are not the only principles whose names end in in. Fixed Oils are ethers of the higher fatty acids which at ordinary temperatures remain liquid. The fatty acids com |