A universal formulary : containing the methods of preparing and administering officinal and other medicines : the whole adapted to physicians and pharmaceutists / by R. Eglesfeld Griffith.

  • Griffith, R. Eglesfeld (Robert Eglesfeld), 1798-1850.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A universal formulary : containing the methods of preparing and administering officinal and other medicines : the whole adapted to physicians and pharmaceutists / by R. Eglesfeld Griffith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    I The design of this work is to present a compendious collection of formulae and pharmaceutic processes, with such additional information as may render it useful to the physician and apothecary; and the principal aim has been to select materials most generally applicable, and of practical utility. The sources from which they have been derived are very numerous, as will be seen by a reference to the various authorities cited. The introduction contains tables and observations on the weights and measures employed for pharmaceutical purposes in the United States and in foreign countries, and an explanation or vocabulary of the principal ab- breviations and Latin terms used by physicians in writing prescriptions, followed by observations on the management of the sick-room, with rules for the administration of the different classes of medicines. The formulary is arranged alphabetically, according to the pharmaceutic names adopted in the United States Pharmacopoeia; but in each formula, the English appellations for the articles composing it are used, and the quanti- ties of these ingredients are expressed in words, and not in the usual phar- maceutic signs. These innovations may, and probably will, be objected to by many; but we feel convinced that a change has become requisite, and that fewer mis- takes would be committed by physicians in writing prescriptions, both in the names of the ingredients and in the quantities, were they given at length, and in common language,, instead of in the abbreviated cabalistic terms now used. In France this change has been made, and it is full time that other countries should follow her example. In this portion of the work, the compiler has derived much important assistance from several of his friends, and is under great obligation to Mr.