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 Ancient Greek: φαρμακοποιία, romanized: pharmakopoiia "making of (healing) medicine, drug-making", a compound of "medicine, drug, poison" (Ancient Greek: φάρμακον, romanized: pharmakon), with the verb "to make" (Ancient Greek: ποιεῖν, romanized: poiein), 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. 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.
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, 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, 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 Medica that De Villeneuve published that same year. This finding was communicated by the same scholar in 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.
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