THE PHARMACOPIA OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NINTH DECENNIAL REVISION BY AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES PHARMACOPOEIAL CONVENTION PREPARED BY THE COMMITTEE OF REVISION AND OFFICIAL FROM SEPTEMBER 1, 1916 PHILADELPHIA P. BLAKISTON'S SON & COMPANY SUB-AGENTS NEW YORK, PAUL B. HOEBER, 67 East 59th Street CHICAGO, CHICAGO MEDICAL BOOK CO., Congress and Honore Streets ST. LOUIS, LEWIS 8. MATTHEWS & CO., 3563 Olive Street SAN FRANCISCO, H. 8. CROCKER CO., 565 Market Street Comparative Table Showing the Strength of the More Important Pharmaco- pœial Substances and Preparations in the Preceding and in the Present 300270 13. Determination of Non-volatile Extractive, Soluble in Ether. 14. Determination of Alcohol in Official Preparations with List of Alco- I HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 'N January, 1817, Dr. Lyman Spalding,* of New York City, submitted to the Medical Society of the County of New York a project for the formation of a National Pharmacopoeia. † Dr. Spalding's plan was as follows: The United States were to be divided into four districts-Northern, Middle, Southern, and Western; the New England States to form the Northern District; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, the Middle District; and the States south and west of these borders to constitute the other two districts. The plan provided that a Convention should be called in each of these districts, to be composed of delegates from all the medical societies and schools situated within each of them. Each District Convention was to form a Pharmacopoeia, and appoint delegates to a General Convention, to be held in Washington. To this General Convention the four District Pharmacopoeias should be taken, and from the material thus brought *Born at Cornish, N.H., June 5, 1775; died at Portsmouth, N.H., October 30, 1821. While European pharmacopoeias were chiefly relied upon as authorities previous to the appearance of the first official Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America, yet a few works had appeared, previous to this time, which deserve to be recorded here. In 1778 there was published at Philadelphia a small Pharmacopoeia for the use of the Military Hospital of the U.S. Army located at Lititz, Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania, under the title: "Pharmacopoeia simpliciorum et efficaciorum, in usum nosocomii militaris, ad exercitum fœderatarum America civitatum pertinentis; hodiernæ nostræ inopiæ rerumque angustiis, feroci hostium sævitiæ, belloque crudeli ex inopinato patriæ nostræ illato debitis, maxime accommodata." A second edition of this appeared in 1781, on the title-page of which Dr. William Brown is mentioned as author. On October 3, 1805, the Counsellors of the Massachusetts Medical Society appointed a Committee to draft a Pharmacopoeia adapted to the special wants of their section of this country. The Committee, consisting of Dr. James Jackson and Dr. John C. Warren, endeavored to secure the co-operation of medical institutions in other States, with the object of making the work national, but without success. They presented the result of their labors to the Counsellors on June 5, 1807, and the work was issued some time in the early part of 1808. It was based upon the last preceding edition of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, but contained much original matter, among which was a posological and prosodial table. In 1815 the Physicians and Surgeons of the New York Hospital appointed Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill and Dr. Valentine Seaman a Committee to prepare a Pharmacopoeia for the use of that institution. This was issued in 1816, and enjoyed for some years an authority of more than local character. |