Animal products such as meat, fish, shellfish, fowl, eggs, and dairy contain zinc. The concentration of zinc in plants varies with the level in the soil. With adequate zinc in the soil, the food plants that contain the most zinc are wheat (germ and bran) and various seeds, including  sesame ,  poppy ,  alfalfa ,  celery , and  mustard . [ 43 ]  Zinc is also found in  beans ,  nuts ,  almonds ,  whole grains ,  pumpkin seeds ,  sunflower seeds , and  blackcurrant . [ 44 ]


Other sources include  fortified food  and  dietary supplements  in various forms. A 1998 review concluded that  zinc oxide , one of the most common supplements in the United States, and  zinc carbonate  are nearly insoluble and poorly absorbed in the body. [ 45 ]  This review cited studies that found lower plasma zinc concentrations in the subjects who consumed zinc oxide and zinc carbonate than in those who took  zinc acetate  and sulfate salts. [ 45 ]  For fortification, however, a 2003 review recommended cereals (containing zinc oxide) as a cheap, stable source that is as easily absorbed as the more expensive forms. [ 46 ]  A 2005 study found that various compounds of zinc, including oxide and sulfate, did not show statistically significant differences in absorption when added as fortificants to maize tortillas. [ 47 ]


Nearly two billion people in the developing world are deficient in zinc. Groups at risk include children in developing countries and the elderly with chronic illnesses. [ 48 ]  In children, it causes an increase in infection and diarrhea and contributes to the death of about 800,000 children worldwide per year. [ 15 ]  The World Health Organization advocates zinc supplementation for severe malnutrition and diarrhea. [ 49 ]  Zinc supplements help prevent disease and reduce mortality, especially among children with low birth weight or stunted growth. [ 49 ]  However, zinc supplements should not be administered alone, because many in the developing world have several deficiencies, and zinc interacts with other micronutrients. [ 50 ]  While zinc deficiency is usually due to insufficient dietary intake, it can be associated with  malabsorption ,  acrodermatitis enteropathica , chronic liver disease, chronic renal disease, sickle cell disease, diabetes, malignancy, and other chronic illnesses. [ 48 ]


In the United States, a federal survey of food consumption determined that for women and men over the age of 19, average consumption was 9.7 and 14.2 mg/day, respectively. For women, 17% consumed less than the EAR, for men 11%. The percentages below EAR increased with age. [ 51 ]  The most recent published update of the survey (NHANES 2013–2014) reported lower averages – 9.3 and 13.2 mg/day – again with intake decreasing with age. [ 52 ]


Symptoms of mild zinc deficiency are diverse. [ 21 ]  Clinical outcomes include depressed growth, diarrhea, impotence and delayed sexual maturation,  alopecia , eye and skin lesions, impaired appetite, altered cognition, impaired immune functions, defects in carbohydrate utilization, and reproductive  teratogenesis . [ 21 ]  Zinc deficiency depresses immunity, [ 53 ]  but excessive zinc does also. [ 10 ]


Despite some concerns, [ 54 ]  western vegetarians and vegans do not suffer any more from overt zinc deficiency than meat-eaters. [ 55 ]  Major plant sources of zinc include cooked dried beans, sea vegetables, fortified cereals, soy foods, nuts, peas, and seeds. [ 54 ]  However,  phytates  in many whole-grains and fibers may interfere with zinc absorption and marginal zinc intake has poorly understood effects. The zinc  chelator   phytate , found in seeds and  cereal   bran , can contribute to zinc malabsorption. [ 48 ]  Some evidence suggests that more than the US RDA (8 mg/day for adult women; 11 mg/day for adult men) may be needed in those whose diet is high in phytates, such as some vegetarians. [ 54 ]  The  European Food Safety Authority  (EFSA) guidelines attempt to compensate for this by recommending higher zinc intake when dietary phytate intake is greater. [ 39 ]  These considerations must be balanced against the paucity of adequate zinc  biomarkers , and the most widely used indicator, plasma zinc, has poor  sensitivity and specificity . [ 56 ]


Zinc can be present in six different forms in soil namely; water soluble zinc, exchangeable zinc, organically bound zinc, carbonate bound zinc, aluminium and manganese oxide bound zinc and residual fractions of zinc. [ 57 ]


In toxic conditions, species of  Calluna ,  Erica  and  Vaccinium  can grow in zinc-metalliferous soils, because translocation of toxic ions is prevented by the action of  ericoid mycorrhizal fungi . [ 58 ]


Zinc deficiency appears to be the most common micronutrient deficiency in crop plants; it is particularly common in high-pH soils. [ 59 ]  Zinc-deficient  soil  is  cultivated  in the cropland of about half of Turkey and India, a third of China, and most of Western Australia. Substantial responses to zinc fertilization have been reported in these areas. [ 5 ]  Plants that grow in soils that are zinc-deficient are more susceptible to disease. Zinc is added to the soil primarily through the weathering of rocks, but humans have added zinc through fossil fuel combustion, mine waste, phosphate fertilizers, pesticide ( zinc phosphide ), limestone, manure, sewage sludge, and particles from  galvanized  surfaces. Excess zinc is toxic to plants, although zinc toxicity is far less widespread. [ 5 ]


Zinc (Zn), alongside Magnesium (Mg) and Iron (Fe), constitutes one of the three families of biodegradable metals. [ 60 ]  Zinc, as an abundant trace element, ranks sixth among all the essential metallic elements crucial for sustaining life within the human body. [ 61 ]  Zinc exhibits an intermediate biodegradation rate, falling between that of Fe (relatively slow) and Mg (relatively high) which positions it as a promising material for use in biodegradable implants. [ 62 ] [ 63 ] [ 64 ]


The  Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary  (APF) is the national  formulary  used by pharmacists in  Australia , compiled by the  Pharmaceutical Society of Australia . New editions of the APF are released every few years, with the latest edition being the 25th. [ 1 ]


The APF was originally a pocket-sized booklet first published in 1902, used by physicians as a drugs reference in Australia. In later editions, rather than simply being a listing of pharmaceuticals, medical and clinical information became incorporated within the publication as well, and eventually the title of the APF was extended to the  Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary and Handbook . [ 2 ]


The APF is divided in a number of sections, with each pertaining to a specific topic. Information includes


The  British National Formulary  ( BNF ) is a United Kingdom (UK)  pharmaceutical  reference book that contains a wide spectrum of information and advice on  prescribing  and  pharmacology , along with specific facts and details about many  medicines  available on the UK  National Health Service  (NHS).  Information within the BNF includes  indication(s) ,  contraindications ,  side effects ,  doses ,  legal classification , names and prices of available proprietary and  generic  formulations, and any other notable points. [ 1 ]   Though it is a national  formulary , it nevertheless also includes entries for some medicines which are not available under the NHS, and must be prescribed and/or purchased privately.  A symbol clearly denotes such drugs in their entry.


It is used by  pharmacists  and  doctors  (both  general practitioners  (GPs) and generalist hospital practitioners, and by other prescribing  healthcare professionals  (such as  nurses ,  pharmacy technicians ,  paramedics , and  dentists )); as a reference for correct dosage, indication, interactions and side effects of drugs.  It is also used as a reassurance by those administering drugs, for example a nurse on a hospital ward, and even for patients and others seeking an authoritative source of advice on any aspect of  pharmacotherapy .


Many individuals and organisations contribute towards the preparation of the BNF.  It is authored by  Pharmaceutical Press , the  Royal Pharmaceutical Society 's (RPS) knowledge business; and is jointly published by the  BMJ  (owned by the  BMA ), and Pharmaceutical Press (owned by the  RPS ). It is published under the authority of a Joint Formulary Committee (JFC), [ 2 ]  which comprises pharmacy, medical, nursing, and lay representatives; there are also representatives from the  Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency  (MHRA), the UK Health Departments, and a national guideline producer.


Information on drugs is drawn from the manufacturers' product literature, medical and pharmaceutical literature, regulatory authorities and professional bodies.  Advice is constructed from clinical literature, and reflects, as far as possible, an evaluation of the evidence from diverse sources.  The BNF also takes account of authoritative national guidelines and emerging safety concerns.  In addition, the Joint Formulary Committee takes advice on all therapeutic areas from advisers from expert groups; this ensures that the BNF's recommendations are relevant to practice.  In September 2016, the  National Institute for Health and Care Excellence  (NICE) in the UK gave NICE accreditation to the processes to produce BNF publications; a further review in 2021 resulted in the successful renewal of accreditation. [ 3 ]


It was first published in 1949, [ 2 ]  as the  National Formulary , with updated versions appearing every three years until 1976.  The fifth version in 1957 saw its name change to  The British National Formulary . [ 4 ] [ 5 ]   A new-look version, under the auspices of  Owen Wade , was released in 1981. [ 2 ] [ 6 ]   A study in Northern Ireland, looking at prescribing in 1965, reported that the BNF was likely able to serve the requirements of prescribers in general practice, while also achieving a cost saving. [ 7 ]   By 2003, issue 46 of the BNF contained 3000 interactions or groups of interactions, with about 900 of these marked by a bullet. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ]


A new edition of the BNF book is published twice-yearly, in March and September. [ 1 ]   The current edition is 87, which was published in March 2024.  It is a tradition that the colour of each new edition is radically different from the previous. [ 2 ]


The BNF is presently available as a book, a website, and mobile applications - the latter for use on  smartphones  and tablets. [ 2 ]   The book is available for purchase, and the September edition is distributed to healthcare professionals in the UK at no direct cost to them. [ 1 ] [ 13 ]   NHS workers and healthcare professionals in the  HINARI  group of developing nations are entitled to free access via MedicinesComplete following registration (requires provision of a name, an address, an email address, and a phone number).  Other visitors can subscribe to the BNF on MedicinesComplete. [ 14 ]   Healthcare organisations can also subscribe to a customisable BNF via their corporate online intranet. [ 15 ]   In 2017, BNF Publications released applications for offline access to the BNF on  iOS  and  Android  devices.  Monthly content updates are available, over an internet connection. [ 16 ]  NICE provides a website providing the content of the BNF to the public, including non-NHS users. [ 17 ]


The BNF also includes the Nurse Prescribers' Formulary (NPF) and other NPF content for use by  District Nurses  and Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (including  Health Visitors ), who have received training to become nurse prescribers. [ 18 ]


The  British National Formulary for Children  (BNFC) [ 1 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ]  book, first published September 2005, [ 2 ]  is published yearly, [ 2 ]  and details the doses and uses of medicines in children from  neonates  to  adolescents . [ 1 ]


The  British National Formulary  is divided into various sections; with the main sections on drugs and preparations being organised by body system.


BNF for Children  ( BNFC ) is the standard UK  paediatric  reference for prescribing and  pharmacology .


It contains a wide range of information and advice on prescribing for children - from newborn to adolescence.
The entries are classified by group of drug, giving cautions for use,  side effects ,  indications  and dose for most of the drugs available for children in the UK  National Health Service . It also includes information on the unlicensed uses of certain drugs. Though published in and for the United Kingdom, the vast bulk of the clinical information will apply in any country.


The  BNFC  is jointly published annually by  BMJ  (owned by the  BMA ),  Pharmaceutical Press  (owned by the  RPS ),  Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health , and the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group. [ 1 ]  The principal contributors are acknowledged in the front pages.


It is overseen by the BNFC Paediatric Formulary Committee
 [ 2 ]
and edited by a team of  pharmacists . [ 3 ]


The BNF for Children developed from the  British National Formulary (BNF) , which prior to 2005 had provided information on the treatment of children, with the doses largely determined by calculations based on the body weight of the child.
The guidance was provided by pharmacists and doctors whose expertise was in the care of adults.


This was an anomaly, [ 4 ]  as in relation to responses to medicines, the difference between a newborn and a sixteen-year-old is greater than the difference between a sixteen-year-old and a sixty-year-old. Starting in 2002, Prof Martin Kendall, [ 5 ] [ 6 ]  then chairman of the BNF Joint Formulary Committee worked to get things changed.


The UK  Department of Health (now the DHSC)  agreed to fund the BNFC, as it does the BNF, to ensure that NHS clinicians can have up-to-date information in their pockets.


The first edition was published in 2005, with George Rylance
 [ 7 ]
chairing the Paediatric Formulary Committee and Dinesh Mehta as the first executive editor.   Anne, the Princess Royal  attended the launch on 14 July.


The BNFC is published annually, but electronic updates
 [ 8 ]
are produced monthly. The current 2022-2023 edition was published in September 2022.


Though not aimed at the general public, the BNFC, like the BNF, is available for purchase.  [ 9 ]


It is provided to NHS staff - usually through their employer, but may be accessed online through MedicinesComplete. [ 10 ]


The app is available through the usual app stores. [ 11 ]   [ 12 ]


The  British Pharmaceutical Codex  (BPC) was first published in 1907, to supplement the  British Pharmacopoeia  which although extensive, did not cover all the medicinal items that a  pharmacist  might require in daily work. Other books existed, such as  Squire's , but the BPC was intended to be official, published by the  Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain  (PSGB). It laid down standards for the composition of medicines and surgical dressings. [ 1 ]


Subsequent editions were published in 1911, 1923,  1934 , 1949, 1954, 1959,  1963 , 1968, and finally 1973.


The 1934 edition was described by the  British Medical Journal  as "one of the most useful reference books available to the medical profession". [ 1 ]


In 1963 Edward G Feldmann, director of revision for the US National Formulary, described it as "a compilation of highly authoritative and useful therapeutic (actions and doses) information as well as a valuable compendium of recognised standards and specifications". [ 2 ]


In 1979 a new edition was published with a new title,  The Pharmaceutical Codex . The  Medicines Commission  had recommended in 1972 that the British Pharmacopoeia should henceforth be the only compendium of official standards for medicines in the UK, and the BPC lost its status as an official book. The PSGB remained as the publishers.


The current edition is the 12th, published in 1994.


De materia medica  ( Latin  name for the  Greek  work  Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς ,  Peri hulēs iatrikēs , both meaning "On  Medical Material ") is a  pharmacopoeia  of  medicinal plants  and the  medicines  that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work was written between 50 and 70 CE by  Pedanius Dioscorides , a Greek physician in the Roman army. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted by revised  herbals  in the  Renaissance , making it one of the longest-lasting of all  natural history  and  pharmacology  books.


The work describes many drugs known to be effective, including  aconite ,  aloes ,  colocynth ,  colchicum ,  henbane ,  opium  and  squill . In total, about 600 plants are covered, along with some animals and mineral substances, and around 1000 medicines made from them.


De materia medica  was circulated as illustrated manuscripts, copied by hand, in Greek, Latin, and  Arabic  throughout the  medieval  period. From the 16th century onwards, Dioscorides' text was translated into  Italian ,  German ,  Spanish ,  French , and into  English  in 1655. It served as the foundation for  herbals  in these languages by figures such as  Leonhart Fuchs ,  Valerius Cordus ,  Lobelius ,  Rembert Dodoens ,  Carolus Clusius ,  John Gerard , and  William Turner . Over time, these herbals incorporated increasing numbers of direct observations, gradually supplementing and eventually supplanting the classical text.


Several manuscripts and early printed versions of  De materia medica  survive, including the illustrated  Vienna Dioscurides  manuscript written in the original Greek in 6th-century  Constantinople ; it was used there by the  Byzantines  as a hospital text for just over a thousand years.  Sir Arthur Hill  saw a monk on  Mount Athos  still using a copy of Dioscorides to identify plants in 1934.


Between 50 and 70 AD, a Greek physician in the Roman army,  Dioscorides , wrote a five-volume book in his native  Greek ,  Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς  ( Peri hules iatrikēs , "On Medical Material"), known more widely in Western Europe by its  Latin  title  De materia medica . He had studied pharmacology at  Tarsus  in  Roman Anatolia  (now Turkey). [ 1 ]  The book became the principal reference work on  pharmacology  across Europe and the Middle East for over 1,500 years, [ 2 ]  and was thus the precursor of all modern  pharmacopoeias . [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


In contrast to many classical authors,  De materia medica  was not "rediscovered" in the Renaissance, because it never left circulation; indeed, Dioscorides' text eclipsed the  Hippocratic Corpus . [ 5 ]  In the medieval period,  De materia medica  was circulated in Latin, Greek, and Arabic. [ 6 ]  In the  Renaissance  from 1478 onwards, it was printed in Italian, German, Spanish, and French as well. [ 7 ]  In 1655,  John Goodyer  made an English translation from a printed version, probably not corrected from the Greek. [ 8 ]


While being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, the text was often supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic and Indian sources. Several illustrated manuscripts of  De materia medica  survive. The most famous is the lavishly illustrated  Vienna Dioscurides  (the  Juliana Anicia Codex ), written in the original Greek in  Byzantine  Constantinople in 512/513 AD; its illustrations are sufficiently accurate to permit identification, something not possible with later medieval drawings of plants; some of them may be copied from a lost volume owned by Juliana Anicia's great-grandfather,  Theodosius II , in the early 5th century. [ 9 ]  The  Naples Dioscurides  and  Morgan Dioscurides  are somewhat later Byzantine manuscripts in Greek, while other Greek manuscripts survive today in the monasteries of  Mount Athos . Densely-illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries. [ 10 ]  The result is a complex set of relationships between  manuscripts , involving translation, copying errors, additions of text and illustrations, deletions, reworkings, and a combination of copying from one manuscript and correction from another. [ 11 ]


De materia medica  is the prime historical source of information about the  medicines  used by the  Greeks ,  Romans , and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the  Dacian names  for some plants, [ 12 ]  which otherwise would have been lost. The work presents about 600  medicinal plants  in all, along with some animals and mineral substances, and around 1,000 medicines made from these sources. [ 13 ] [ 14 ]  Botanists have not always found Dioscorides' plants easy to identify from his short descriptions, partly because he had naturally described plants and animals from southeastern Europe, whereas by the 16th century his book was in use all over Europe and across the Islamic world. This meant that people attempted to force a match between the plants they knew and those described by Dioscorides, leading to what could be catastrophic results. [ 15 ]


Each entry gives a substantial amount of detail on the plant or substance in question, concentrating on medicinal uses but giving such mention of other uses (such as culinary) and help with recognition as considered necessary. For example, on the "Mekon Agrios and Mekon Emeros", [ 16 ]  the  opium poppy  and related species, Dioscorides states that the seed of one is made into bread: it has "a somewhat long little head and white seed", while another "has a head bending down" [ 16 ]  and a third is "more wild, more medicinal and longer than these, with a head somewhat long—and they are all cooling." [ 16 ]  After this brief description, he moves at once into pharmacology, saying that they cause sleep; other uses are to treat inflammation and  erysipela , and if boiled with honey to make a cough mixture. The account thus combines recognition, pharmacological effect, and guidance on drug preparation. Its effects are summarized, accompanied by a caution: [ 16 ]


A little of it (taken with as much as a grain of ervum) is a pain-easer, a sleep-causer, and a digester, helping coughs and abdominal cavity afflictions. Taken as a drink too often it hurts (making men lethargic) and it kills. It is helpful for aches, sprinkled on with rosaceum; and for pain in the ears dropped in them with oil of almonds, saffron, and myrrh. For inflammation of the eyes it is used with a roasted egg yolk and saffron, and for erysipela and wounds with vinegar; but for gout with women's milk and saffron. Put up with the finger as a suppository it causes sleep.


Dioscorides then describes how to tell a good from a counterfeit preparation. He mentions the recommendations of other physicians, Diagoras (according to Eristratus), Andreas, and Mnesidemus, only to dismiss them as false and not borne out by experience. He ends with a description of how the liquid is gathered from  poppy  plants, and lists names used for it:  chamaesyce ,  mecon   rhoeas ,  oxytonon ;  papaver  to the Romans, and  wanti  to the Egyptians. [ 16 ]


As late as in the  Tudor  and  Stuart periods  in Britain, herbals often still classified plants in the same way as Dioscorides and other classical authors, not by their structure or apparent relatedness but by how they smelt and tasted, whether they were edible, and what medicinal uses they had. [ 17 ]  Only when European botanists like  Matthias de l'Obel ,  Andrea Cesalpino  and  Augustus Quirinus Rivinus  (Bachmann) had done their best to match plants they knew to those listed in Dioscorides did they go further and create new  classification systems  based on similarity of parts, whether leaves, fruits, or flowers. [ 18 ]


The book is divided into five volumes. Dioscorides organized the substances by certain similarities, such as their being aromatic, or vines; these divisions do not correspond to any modern classification. In David Sutton's view the grouping is by the type of effect on the human body. [ 19 ]


Volume I covers aromatic oils, the plants that provide them, and ointments made from them. They include what are probably  cardamom ,  nard ,  valerian ,  cassia  or  senna ,  cinnamon ,  balm of Gilead ,  hops ,  mastic ,  turpentine ,   pine  resin,  bitumen ,  heather ,  quince ,  apple ,  peach ,  apricot ,  lemon ,  pear ,  medlar ,  plum  and many others. [ 20 ]


Volume II covers an assortment of topics: animals including sea creatures such as  sea urchin ,  seahorse ,  whelk ,  mussel ,  crab ,  scorpion ,  electric ray ,  viper ,  cuttlefish  and many others; dairy produce;  cereals ; vegetables such as  sea kale ,  beetroot ,  asparagus ; and sharp herbs such as  garlic ,  leek ,  onion ,  caper  and  mustard . [ 21 ]


Volume III covers roots, seeds and herbs. These include plants that may be  rhubarb ,  gentian ,  liquorice ,  caraway ,  cumin ,  parsley ,  lovage ,  fennel  and many others. [ 22 ]


Volume IV describes further roots and herbs not covered in Volume III. These include herbs that may be  betony ,  Solomon's seal ,  clematis ,  horsetail ,  daffodil  and many others. [ 23 ]


Volume V covers the grapevine, wine made from it, grapes and raisins; but also strong medicinal potions made by boiling many other plants including  mandrake ,  hellebore , and various metal compounds, such as what may be  zinc oxide ,  verdigris  and  iron oxide . [ 24 ]


Writing in  The Great Naturalists , the  historian of science  David Sutton describes  De materia medica  as "one of the most enduring works of natural history ever written" [ 25 ]  and that "it formed the basis for Western knowledge of medicines for the next 1,500 years." [ 25 ]


The historian of science  Marie Boas  writes that herbalists depended entirely on Dioscorides and  Theophrastus  until the 16th century, when they finally realized they could work on their own. [ 7 ]  She notes also that  herbals  by different authors, such as  Leonhart Fuchs ,  Valerius Cordus ,  Lobelius ,  Rembert Dodoens ,  Carolus Clusius ,  John Gerard  and  William Turner , were dominated by Dioscorides, his influence only gradually weakening as the 16th-century herbalists "learned to add and substitute their own observations". [ 26 ]


Early science and medicine historian Paula Findlen, writing in the  Cambridge History of Science: Early Modern Science , calls  De materia medica  "one of the most successful and enduring herbals of antiquity, [which] emphasized the importance of understanding the natural world in light of its medicinal efficiency", in contrast to  Pliny 's  Natural History  (which emphasized the wonders of nature) or the  natural history  studies of  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus  (which emphasized the causes of natural phenomena). [ 27 ]  Medicine historian  Vivian Nutton , in  Ancient Medicine , writes that Dioscorides's "five books in Greek On Materia medica attained canonical status in Late Antiquity." [ 28 ]  Science historian Brian Ogilvie calls Dioscorides "the greatest ancient herbalist", and  De materia medica  "the  summa  of ancient descriptive botany", observing that its success was such that few other books in his domain have survived from classical times. [ 29 ]  Further, his approach matched the Renaissance liking for detailed description, unlike the philosophical search for essential nature (as in Theophrastus's  Historia Plantarum ). A critical moment was the decision by  Niccolò Leoniceno  and others to use Dioscorides "as the model of the careful naturalist—and his book  De materia medica  as the model for natural history." [ 30 ]


The Dioscorides translator and editor Tess Anne Osbaldeston notes that "For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the ultimate authority on plants and medicine", [ 31 ]  and that he "achieved overwhelming commendation and approval because his writings addressed the many ills of mankind most usefully." [ 31 ]  To illustrate this, she states that "Dioscorides describes many valuable drugs including  aconite ,  aloes ,  bitter apple ,  colchicum ,  henbane , and  squill ". [ 32 ]  The work mentions the painkillers willow (leading ultimately to  aspirin , she writes),  autumn crocus  and  opium , which however is also narcotic. Many other substances that Dioscorides describes remain in modern pharmacopoeias as "minor drugs, diluents, flavouring agents, and  emollients  ... [such as]  ammoniacum ,  anise ,  cardamoms ,  catechu ,  cinnamon ,  colocynth ,  coriander ,  crocus ,  dill ,  fennel ,  galbanum ,  gentian ,  hemlock ,  hyoscyamus ,  lavender ,  linseed , mastic,  male fern ,  marjoram ,  marshmallow ,  mezereon ,  mustard ,  myrrh ,  orris  (iris),  oak galls ,  olive oil ,  pennyroyal ,  pepper ,  peppermint , poppy,  psyllium ,  rhubarb ,  rosemary ,  rue ,  saffron ,  sesame , squirting cucumber ( elaterium ),  starch , stavesacre ( delphinium ),  storax ,  stramonium ,  sugar ,  terebinth ,  thyme ,  white hellebore ,  white horehound , and  couch grass —the last still used as a  demulcent   diuretic ." [ 32 ]  She notes that medicines such as  wormwood ,  juniper ,  ginger , and  calamine  also remain in use, while " Chinese  and  Indian physicians  continue to use  liquorice ". [ 32 ]  She observes that the many drugs listed to reduce the  spleen  may be explained by the frequency of  malaria  in his time. Dioscorides lists drugs for women to cause  abortion  and to treat  urinary tract infection ;  palliatives  for  toothache , such as  colocynth , and others for intestinal pains; and treatments for skin and eye diseases. [ 32 ]  As well as these useful substances, she observes that "A few  superstitious practices  are recorded in  De materia medica ," [ 32 ]  such as using  Echium  as an  amulet  to ward off snakes, or  Polemonia  ( Jacob's ladder ) for  scorpion  stings. [ 32 ]


In the view of the historian Paula De Vos,  De materia medica  formed the core of the European pharmacopoeia until the end of the 19th century, suggesting that "the timelessness of Dioscorides' work resulted from an  empirical tradition  based on trial and error; that it worked for generation after generation despite social and cultural changes and changes in medical theory". [ 5 ]


At  Mount Athos  in northern Greece Dioscorides's text was still in use in its original Greek into the 20th century, as observed in 1934 by  Sir Arthur Hill , Director of the  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew :


At  Karyes  there is an official Botanist Monk ... he was a remarkable old Monk with an extensive knowledge of plants and their properties. Though fully gowned in a long black cassock he traveled very quickly, usually on foot, and sometimes on a mule, carrying his 'Flora' with him in a large, black, bulky bag. Such a bag was necessary since his 'Flora' was nothing less than four manuscript folio volumes of Dioscorides, which apparently he himself had copied out. This Flora he invariably used for determining any plant which he could not name at sight, and he could find his way in his books and identify his plants—to his own satisfaction—with remarkable rapidity. [ 33 ]


Along with his fellow physicians of Ancient Rome,  Aulus Cornelius Celsus ,  Galen ,  Hippocrates  and  Soranus of Ephesus , Dioscorides had a major and long-lasting effect on  Arabic medicine  as well as medical practice across Europe. [ 34 ] [ 35 ]   De materia medica  was one of the first scientific works to be translated from Greek into Arabic (Arabic: Hayūlā ʿilāj al-ṭibb ). It was translated first into  Syriac  and then into Arabic in 9th century Baghdad. [ 36 ] [ 37 ]  The translators were most often  Syriac Christians , such as  Hunayn ibn Ishaq , and their work is known to have been sponsored by local rulers, such as the  Artuqids . [ 38 ]


Manuscript (Or. 289), dated 1083, an illustrated Arabic translation of Dioscurides'  De Materia medica . The work was originally translated from Greek into Arabic via Syriac by  Hunayn ibn Ishaq  (810–873) with the collaboration of  Stephanus b. Bāsīl  between 847–861. This translation was slightly revised by  Ḥusayn b. Ibrāhīm al-Nātilī  in 990–991. The current copy is based on an exemplar in the hand of al-Nātilī. The work was offered to the amīr of  Samarqand ,  Abū ʿAlī al-Simǧūrī . Acquired by  Levinus Warner  (1619–1665) and bequeathed to  Leiden University Library  on his death. [ 39 ]
A digitized version is available via Leiden's Digital Collections. [ 40 ]


One  De materia medica  manuscript is dated to 1224, but its provenance is uncertain. It is generally cautiously attributed to "Iraq or Northern Jazira, possibly Baghdad". [ 41 ]  Its folios have been dispersed among multiple institutions and collectors.


This copy was created by Abd Al-Jabbar ibn Ali in 1229. [ 42 ] [ 43 ]


Note: Editions may vary by both text and numbering of chapters


Arabic


English


French


German


Greek


Greek and Latin


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Spanish


Embase  (often styled  EMBASE  for  Excerpta Medica dataBASE ) is a  biomedical  and  pharmacological   bibliographic database  of published literature designed to support information managers and  pharmacovigilance  in complying with the regulatory requirements of a licensed  drug . Embase, produced by  Elsevier , contains over 32 million records from over 8,500 currently published journals from 1947 [ 1 ]  to the present. Through its international coverage, daily updates, and drug indexing with  EMTREE , Embase enables tracking and retrieval of drug information in the published literature. Each record is fully indexed and Articles in Press are available for some records and In Process are available for all records, ahead of full indexing. Embase's international coverage expands across biomedical journals from 95 countries and is available through a number of database vendors. [ 2 ]


In 1946, the beginnings of Embase was created as Excerpta Medica (EM) Abstract Journals by a group of Dutch physicians who promoted the flow of medical knowledge and reports post  World War II . Included in EM were 13 journal sections which categorized the medical school curriculum by  anatomy ,  pathology ,  physiology ,  internal medicine , and other basic clinical specialties. This database lasted until 1972 when it merged with  Elsevier .


In 1972, EM had joined with  Elsevier  and later, in 1975, formed EMBASE (Excerpta Medica database) which had released electronic access to abstract journals. Following feedback from the EMBASE user community, EMBASE Classic was created as a separate database to supplement EMBASE as a backfile of medical journals from 1947-1973 which provides valuable documentation of drugs, adverse effects, endogenous compounds, etc. found at the time. [ 3 ]


In 2010, Excerpta Medica, excluding EMBASE, was sold by Elsevier to the  Omnicom Group . [ 4 ]


In addition to the 28 million reports, Embase's database steadily rises each year at a rate of over 900,000 records. [ 5 ]  This wide expanse of information is used in both professional and educational environments for retrieving any published biomedical or drug related information. Currently, Embase allows further customization for a personal experience such as implementing a  RSS feed  and email alert system. With new drug and disease-related information constantly released, Embase is updated daily to provide a comprehensive and reliable source of information.


EMDEX  ( E ssential  M edicines Index) is the most commonly used reference source of drug and therapeutic information by healthcare professionals in  Nigeria . [ 1 ] [ 2 ]  It was first published in 1991 as Nigeria's Essential Drugs (NED) Guide.
EMDEX drug information contents, arrangements, and therapeutic recommendations are supported by several references and clinical guidelines notably  WHO Model Formulary ,  WHO ATC (Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical) Classification System ,  Nigeria's Essential Medicines List , and  Standard Treatment Guidelines , etc. The information is regularly reviewed and updated by a select team of healthcare practitioners and academics.
The central objective of EMDEX has been to promote the rational use of medicines through the provision of independent drug information, and the use of  clinical guidelines  and  essential medicines list . [ 3 ]  It is the largest and most up-to-date source of information on drug products approved for use in Nigeria by  NAFDAC (National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control) .
The use of EMDEX as a reference drug manual is endorsed by  the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria ,  the Nursing & Midwifery Council of Nigeria , and major health institutions. It is used both within and outside Nigeria by  physicians ,  dentists ,  pharmacists ,  nurse practitioners , and auxiliary health workers at all levels of healthcare delivery. These healthcare providers rely on EMDEX for accuracy and completeness of drug information namely indications, contra-indications, precautions or warnings, adverse effects, dosages, and drug use in special populations like children, elderly, pregnancy & lactation. [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
EMDEX publications are also in the syllabus of various colleges & schools of  medicine ,  pharmacy  &  nursing . [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]


A national  formulary  is essentially a listing of available and affordable  medicines  that are relevant to the treatment of  diseases  in a particular country. It is usually a source of unbiased drug information and helps promote the rational use of safe, effective and good-quality medicines. [ 9 ]


EMDEX vol. 1 (Drug Information for Healthcare Professionals) is published annually.
Other EMDEX print publications include:


Formularium Slovenicum  is  Slovenian  addendum to the  European Pharmacopoeia . [ 1 ]  It promotes Slovenian pharmaceutical  terminology  and the regulations affecting the field of  pharmacy  in Slovenia. [ 2 ]  It has been regularly published by the  Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices of the Republic of Slovenia .


Slovenia does not have its own  pharmacopoeia , i.e. a collection of monographs and other provisions containing legally binding regulations regarding the development, manufacture, and quality assessment of medicinal products and their ingredients as well as other information on medicinal products and their use. Since 1997,  European Pharmacopoeia  has been in force in the Republic of Slovenia. [ 2 ]  The alignment of provisions of the national law in the field of medicinal products and regulations at the level of the  European Pharmacopoeia  brought forward the need for Slovenian addendum to the  European Pharmacopoeia . The committee for drafting the national addendum at the Office for Medicinal Products of the Slovenian Ministry of Health issued in June 1998 the first edition of  Formularium Slovenicum . [ 3 ]  Several amendments and updated editions have followed, though the work of the committee preparing  Formularium Slovenicum  was interrupted between 2013 and 2018. [ 4 ]


Formularium Slovenicum  supplements  European Pharmacopoeia  standards and provides translations of titles, complete translations of the main monographs or their individual parts, and translations of general chapters. The chapter  National monographs  comprises interesting and useful monographs for Slovenian pharmacy practice that the  European Pharmacopoeia  does not include. It also includes the chapter  Standard Terms for Pharrmaceutical Forms, Methods of Administration, and Containers .  Formularium Slovenicum  has an important role in the drafting, development, and promotion of Slovenian pharmaceutical terms. [ 5 ]


The first edition has been followed by numerous amendments and updated editions: [ 4 ]


Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics , commonly referred to as the  Blue Bible  or  Goodman & Gilman , is a  textbook  of  pharmacology  originally authored by  Louis S. Goodman  and  Alfred Gilman . First published in 1941, the book is in its 14th edition (as of 2022), and has the reputation of being the "bible of pharmacology". The readership of this book include physicians of all therapeutic and surgical specialties, clinical pharmacologists, clinical research professionals and pharmacists.


While teaching jointly in the  Yale School of Medicine 's Department of Pharmacology, Goodman and Gilman began developing a course textbook that emphasized relationships between  pharmacodynamics  and  pharmacotherapy , introduced recent pharmacological advances like  sulfa drugs , and discussed the history of drug development. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]   Yale physiologist  John Farquhar Fulton  encouraged them to publish the work for a broader audience and introduced them to a publisher at the  Macmillan Publishing Company . [ 1 ]  Their new text was first published in 1941 under the title  The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics: A Textbook of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics for Physicians and Medical Student . [ 1 ]  Because the volume was twice as long as a typical textbook, Macmillan printed few copies, but demand for a readable, up-to-date pharmacological text proved high, and several printings followed. [ 2 ]


Although rapid pharmacological innovations were made in the years immediately following—including the introduction of  chemotherapy ,  steroids ,  antibiotics , and  antihistamines —a second edition could not be completed until 1955 because of the authors' service in World War II. [ 2 ] [ 1 ]  Thereafter, the text was revised every five years in collaboration with a large number of specialist coauthors. [ 1 ]


Gilman and Goodman remained the book's lead editors for the first five editions; Gilman remained an editor through the sixth edition, and Goodman through the seventh, which was published shortly after Gilman's death in 1984.  Alfred Goodman Gilman , the son of Alfred Gilman and winner of the 1994  Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology , joined as senior editor for the book's sixth, seventh, and eighth editions, and a contributing editor to the ninth and tenth. [ 3 ]  Goodman died in 2000, and Goodman Gilman in December 2015.


The first five editions were published under the title  The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics: A Textbook of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutics for Physicians and Medical Students .


Editions 6 onwards were published under the title  Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics .


There have been many published book reviews of this widely used textbook. The first edition reviewer was highly enthusiastic and said that he was “delirious in his appraisal of the book”, that it was an “amazing work”, and “the product of enormous industry and keen insight”. [ 4 ]  A reviewer of the eighteen-hundred page second-edition described it as encyclopedic, indispensable, and as an excellent resource for students. [ 5 ]  The fourth edition reviewer noted that “all other related books seem to pale by comparison”. [ 6 ]  The 6th edition published in 1980 was praised for the extensive bibliography, but also noted that, although “this book is recommended to all those who prescribe drugs”,  it had become “too large to be used by medical students as a routine textbook”. [ 7 ]  The ninth edition was designated as the "blue bible of pharmacology" and as the gold standard. [ 8 ]  The 12th edition was criticized for only one-ninth of authors being female. [ 9 ]  However, this had increased to one-fifth of the authors being female in the thirteen-edition. A policy of the editors has been to not disclose the potential conflicts of interest by the authors. The 12th edition authors were the recipients of over one-hundred and thirty patents. [ 10 ]  The thirteenth edition authors received three-million dollars from pharmaceutical companies which was undisclosed. Unlike earlier editions which were praised for being up to date, [ 4 ]  an analysis of the 13th edition found that the citations were older than those of other pharmacology textbooks. [ 9 ]  A team of the reviewers for the 2018 edition were more measured than those of earlier editions. [ 9 ]


King's American Dispensatory  is a book first published in 1854 that covers the uses of herbs used in American medical practice, especially by those involved in  eclectic medicine , which was the botanical school of medicine in the 19th to 20th centuries.  In 1880  John Uri Lloyd , an eclectic pharmacist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, promised his friend, professor John King, to revise the pharmaceutical and chemical sections of the  American Dispensatory . Eighteen years later an entirely rewritten eighteenth edition (third revision) was published in 1898. It was co-authored by eclectic physician  Harvey Wickes Felter


This article about  alternative medicine  is a  stub . You can help Wikipedia by  expanding it .


Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference  is a reference book published by  Pharmaceutical Press  listing some 6,000  drugs  and  medicines  used throughout the world, including details of over 125,000 proprietary preparations. It also includes almost 700 disease treatment reviews.


It was first published in 1883 under the title  Martindale: The Extra Pharmacopoeia .  Martindale  contains information on drugs in clinical use worldwide, as well as selected investigational and veterinary drugs,  herbal  and complementary medicines, pharmaceutical excipients,  vitamins  and nutritional agents,  vaccines , radiopharmaceuticals,  contrast media  and  diagnostic agents , medicinal gases,  drugs of abuse  and  recreational drugs , toxic substances,  disinfectants , and  pesticides .


Martindale  aims to cover drugs and related substances reported to be of clinical interest anywhere in the world. It provides health professionals with a useful source of information to identify medicines, such as confirming the drug and brand name of a medication being taken by a patient arriving from abroad. Alternatively, if the drug is not available, the class of agent can be determined allowing a  pharmacist  or doctor to determine which other equivalent drugs might be substituted. Monographs include  Chemical Abstracts Service  (CAS) numbers,  Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System  (ATC) codes and FDA  Unique Ingredient Identifier  (UNII) codes to help readers refer to other information systems.


Martindale  is arranged into two main parts followed by three extensive indexes:


Digital versions include an additional 1,000 drug monographs, 100,000 preparation names, and 5,000 manufacturers.


To date there have been 40 editions of  Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference .  The 40th edition was published in May 2020.


Materia medica  ( lit. : 'medical material/substance') is a  Latin  term from the  history of pharmacy  for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing (i.e.,  medications ). The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician  Pedanius Dioscorides  in the 1st century AD,  De materia medica , 'On medical material' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς,  Peri hylēs iatrikēs , in Greek).


The term  materia medica  was used from the period of the  Roman Empire  until the 20th century, [ 1 ]  but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term  pharmacology . The term survives in the title of the  British Medical Journal ' s "Materia Non Medica" column.


The earliest known writing about medicine was a 110-page Egyptian  papyrus . It was supposedly written by the god  Thoth  in about 16 BC. The  Ebers papyrus  is an ancient recipe book dated to approximately 1552 BC. It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic  amulets  and spells. [ 2 ]  The most famous Egyptian physician was  Imhotep , who lived in  Memphis  around 2500 B.C. Imhotep's materia medica consisted of procedures for treating head and torso injuries, tending of wounds, and prevention and curing of infections, as well as advanced principles of hygiene.


In India, the  Ayurveda  is traditional medicine that emphasizes plant-based treatments, hygiene, and balance in the body's state of being. Indian materia medica included knowledge of plants, where they grow in all season, methods for storage and shelf life of harvested materials. It also included directions for making juice from vegetables, dried powders from herb, cold infusions and extracts. [ 3 ]


The earliest  Chinese manual of materia medica , the  Shennong Bencao Jing  ( Shennong Emperor's Classic of Materia Medica ), was compiled in the 1st century AD during the  Han dynasty , attributed to the mythical  Shennong . It lists some 365 medicines, of which 252 are herbs. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by the  Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments  found in the Mawangdui tomb, which was sealed in 168 BC. Succeeding generations augmented the  Shennong Bencao Jing , as in the  Yaoxing Lun  ( Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs ), a 7th-century  Tang dynasty  treatise on herbal medicine.


In Greece,  Hippocrates  (born 460 BC) was a philosopher later known as the Father of Medicine. He founded a school of medicine that focused on treating the causes of disease rather than its symptoms. Disease was dictated by natural laws and therefore could be treated through close observation of symptoms. His treatises,  Aphorisms  and  Prognostics , discuss 265 drugs, the importance of diet and external treatments for diseases. [ 3 ]


Theophrastus  (390–280 BC) was a disciple of  Aristotle  and a philosopher of  natural history , considered by historians as the Father of Botany. He wrote a treatise entitled  Historia Plantarium  about 300 BC. It was the first attempt to organize and classify plants, plant lore, and botanical morphology in Greece. It provided physicians with a rough taxonomy of plants and details of medicinal herbs and herbal concoctions. [ 4 ]


Galen  was a philosopher, physician, pharmacist and prolific medical writer. He compiled an extensive record of the medical knowledge of his day and added his own observations. He wrote on the structure of organs, but not their uses; the pulse and its association with respiration; the arteries and the movement of blood; and the uses of  theriacs . "In treatises such as  On Theriac to Piso ,  On Theriac to Pamphilius , and  On Antidotes , Galen identified theriac as a sixty-four-ingredient compound, able to cure any ill known". [ 5 ]  His work was rediscovered in the 15th century and became the authority on medicine and healing for the next two centuries. His medicine was based on the regulation of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) and their properties (wet, dry, hot, and cold). [ 6 ]


The Greek physician  Pedanius Dioscorides , of  Anazarbus  in Asia Minor, wrote a five-volume treatise concerning medical matters, entitled Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς in Greek or  De materia medica  in Latin. This famous commentary covered about 600 plants along with therapeutically useful animal and mineral products. It documented  the effects of drugs made from these substances on patients.  De materia medica  was the first extensive  pharmacopeia , including about a thousand natural product drugs (mostly plant-based), 4,740 medicinal usages for drugs, and 360 medical properties (such as  antiseptic ,  anti-inflammatory ,  stimulant ). The book was heavily translated, and portrayed some of the emblematic actions of physicians and herbalists. One such page is  Physician Preparing an Elixir .


Dioscorides' plant descriptions use an elementary classification, though he cannot be said to have used  botanical taxonomy . Book one describes the uses for aromatic oils,  salves  and  ointments , trees and  shrubs , and fleshy fruits, even if not aromatic. Book two included uses for animals, parts of animals, animal products, cereals,  leguminous , malvaceous,  cruciferous , and other garden  herbs . Book three detailed the properties of roots, juices, herbs and seeds used for food or medicine. Book four continued to describe the uses for roots and herbs, specifically  narcotic  and poisonous medicinal plants. Book five dealt with the medicinal uses for wine and metallic  ores . [ 7 ] [ 8 ]  It is a precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, and is considered one of the most influential herbal books in history. It remained in use until about 1600 AD. [ 9 ]


Avicenna  (980–1037 AD) was a Persian philosopher, physician, and Islamic scholar. He wrote about 40 books on medicine. His two most famous books are  The Canon of Medicine  and  The Book of Healing , used in medieval universities as medical textbooks. He did much to popularize the connection between Greek and Arabic medicine, translating works by Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen into Arabic. Avicenna stressed the importance of diet, exercise, and hygiene. He also was the first to describe parasitic infection, to use urine for diagnostic purposes and discouraged physicians from the practice of surgery because it was too base and manual. [ 2 ]


In medieval Europe, medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated in monastery and nunnery gardens beginning about the 8th century.  Charlemagne  gave orders for the collection of medicinal plants to be grown systematically in his royal garden. This royal garden was an important precedent for  botanical gardens  and  physic gardens  that were established in the 16th century. It was also the beginning of the study of  botany  as a separate discipline. In about the 12th century, medicine and pharmacy began to be taught in universities. [ 4 ]


Shabbethai Ben Abraham, better known as  Shabbethai Donnolo , (913– c .982) was a 10th-century Italian Jew and the author of an early Hebrew text,  Antidotarium . It consisted of detailed drug descriptions, medicinal remedies, practical methods for preparing medicine from roots. It was a veritable glossary of herbs and drugs used during the medieval period. Donnollo was widely travelled and collected information from Arabic, Greek and Roman sources. [ 2 ]


In the Early and High Middle Ages  Nestorian  Christians were banished for their heretical views that they carried to  Asia Minor . The Greek text was translated into Syriac when pagan Greek scholars fled east after  Constantine ’s conquest of  Byzantium ,
 Stephanos  (son of Basilios, a Christian living in  Baghdad  under the Khalif Motawakki) made an Arabic translation of  De Materia Medica  from the Greek in 854. In 948 the Byzantine Emperor  Romanus II , son and co-regent of Constantine  Porphyrogenitos , sent a beautifully illustrated Greek manuscript of  De materia medica  to the Spanish Khalif,  Abd-Arrahman III .  In 1250, Syriac scholar  Bar Hebraeus  prepared an illustrated Syriac version, which was translated into Arabic. [ 7 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ]


Matthaeus Silvaticus ,  Avicenna ,  Galen ,  Dioscorides , Platearius and Serapio inspired the appearance of three main works printed in  Mainz : In 1484 the  Herbarius , the following year the  Gart der Gesundheit , and in 1491 the  Ortus Sanitatis . The works contain 16, 242 and 570 references to Dioscorides, respectively. [ 9 ]


The first appearance of Dioscorides as a printed book was a Latin translation printed at  Colle , Italy by  Johanemm Allemanun de Mdemblik  in 1478. The Greek version appeared in 1499 by  Manutius  at  Venice .


The most useful books of botany, pharmacy and medicine used by students and scholars were supplemented commentaries on Dioscorides, including the works of  Fuchs ,  Anguillara ,  Mattioli ,  Maranta ,  Cesalpino ,  Dodoens , Fabius Columna,  Gaspard  and  Johann Bauhin , and  De Villanueva/Servetus . In several of these versions, the annotations and comments exceed the Dioscoridean text and have much new botany. Printers were not merely printing the authentic materia medica, but hiring experts on the medical and botanical field for criticism, commentaries, that would raise the stature of the printers and the work. [ 4 ]


Most of these authors copied each other, from previous works. It was normal to add previous commentaries and marginalia, to make the text look more enriched or thorough.


There were several De Materia Medica works noted as  Anonymous A, B, C and D  by the expert on Dioscorides-De Materia Medica professor  John M. Riddle . The  Anonymous A  has to do with authors on translations of handwriting. Riddle proved  Anonymous C  to be Bruyerinus Champier. [ 4 ]


During the 16th century, the most representative among them were  Ermolao Barbaro , Jean Ruel, Broyeurinus, Michel de Villeneuva,  Pietro Andrea Mattioli ,  Andres Laguna , Marcello Virgilio, Martin Mathee and  Valerius Cordus . [ 4 ] [ 7 ]


In 1789,  William Cullen  published his two volume  A Treatise of the Materia Medica , which was highly valued by other medical practitioners throughout Europe. [ citation needed ]


The work of the Italian physician and humanist  Ermolao Barbaro  was published in 1516, 23 years after his death.  Poliziano  wrote to Ermalao Barbaro, forwarding a manuscript of the 1st-century pharmacologist  Pedanius Dioscorides , asking him to send it back "annotated by that very learned hand of yours, thus lending the volume additional value and authority." [ 12 ]  Barbaro was professor of the  University of Padua  in 1477 and translated many texts from Greek to Latin. [ 13 ]
He sought to avoid mistakes by gathering as many manuscripts as he could for checking the texts. He claimed to have corrected 5000 mistakes between two editions of  Pliny the Elder 's  Naturalis historia , [ 14 ]  a work he found very similar to  Materia Medica , for which he used at least two editions as well.


The result of Barbaro's effort occupied no fewer than 58 pages printed in three columns of about 50 entries each. The work provides a key to over 9,000 items; all references were to pages. This was the first annotated Latin translation of Dioscorides'  Materia Medica , and so Barbaro became the earliest of the  Renaissance  translators of Dioscorides, [ 13 ] [ 15 ]  a practice that saw its golden age in the 16th century. Barbaro's work was later corrected by Giovanni-Battista.


Jean Ruel was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and physician to King  Francis I of France . He perfected the Latin translation of the  Materia Medica  directly from the " princeps " edition. He tried to develop a translation joining  philology ,  botany  and  medicine . This work, printed in 1516 by  Henri Estienne/Stephano , became very popular, having 20 editions during the 16th century. He published editions until 1537, printed by  Simon de Colines . [ 4 ] [ 7 ]


From this point, Latin was the preferred language for presenting De Materia Medica, and Ruel's editions became the basis from which many other important authors would start to create their own Materia Medica. Ruel was also teacher of two great De Materia Medica authors: Michel de Villeneuve and Andres Laguna. [ 7 ] [ 16 ]


Bruyerinus Champier was the nephew of  Symphorien Champier , and physician of  Henry II of France . He was an Arabist, and translated works of  Avicena . [ 17 ]  In 1550 he published his first Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in  Lyons . This work had a second edition in 1552 printed by Arnoullet in Lyon and  Vienne . Both works were illustrated with figures by  Fuchs , but in this last edition there were also 30 woodcuts by the botanist and physician Jacob Dalechamp. [ 4 ] [ 18 ]  It seems that the reason that he used his initials, H.B.P., and not his full name in the work; it could be that he practically transcribed commentaries of  Mattioli . [ 4 ] [ 19 ] [ clarification needed ]


According to Spanish scholar González Echeverría [ 20 ]  in several communications in the  ISHM , [ 21 ] [ 22 ] [ 23 ]  the  John M. Riddle   Anonymous B  (De Materia Medica of 1543) would be  Michael Servetus , and that the  Anonymous D  (De Materia Medica of 1554 of  Mattioli  plus non-signed commentaries) is two commentarians, Servetus and  Mattioi , being the last one hired for editing the " Lyons  printers' Tribute to Michel de Villeneuve " [ 24 ]  edition.
Michael Servetus, using the name "Michel de Villeneuve", who already had his first death sentence from the  University of Paris , anonymously published a Dioscorides-De Materia Medica in 1543, printed by Jean & Francois Frellon in Lyon. [ 25 ]   It has 277 marginalia and 20 commentaries on a De Materia Medica of Jean Ruel. [ 25 ]   According to Gonzalez Echeverría, to be associated to an anonymous  Pharmacopeia  that "Michel de Villeneuve" published the same year, meant to be a single unit, [ 23 ]  which is typical when it comes to De Materia Medica-Pharmacopeia. This work had six later editions, in 1546 and 1547 by Jean Frellon, who considered Michael de Villeneuve "his friend and brother", another in 1547 by Thibaut Payen, etc. [ 25 ] [ 26 ]


There is another Materia Medica with commentaries [ 21 ]  on a Ruel edition of 1537, printed by  Simon de Colines . This work contains hundreds of manuscript marginaia, all along 420 out of 480 pages. The scholar Gonzalez Echeverria demonstrated in the  ISHM [ 21 ]  with a graphological, historical and linguistic study that this task was carried out by Michel de Villeneuve. It also demonstrated that this document was written by the same hand that wrote the famous [ 26 ]  "Manuscript of Paris", a work also by Michel de Villeneuve, consisting of a draft for his Christianismo Restitutio. "The manuscript of the  Complutense " is not just a union of the ideas of the previous works by Michel de Villeneuve, Syropum Ratio, etc., but also of the later works, Enquiridion, [ 23 ]  De Materia Medica of 1543, [ 25 ]  sharing with this last many of its 20 big commentaries, for instance. [ 26 ]


According to this theory, in 1554, [ 21 ]  after the immolation of Michael de Villeneuve/Servetus, the editors and printers that had worked with him would have decided to make a new De Materia Medica as a tribute to their colleague and friend. [ 21 ]  All the commentaries that could identify Michel de Villeneuve as the author disappeared, [ 26 ]  but the rest are copied from his work of 1543. It is a very strange edition because there exist four different kinds of copies with different covers, one per editor: Jean Frellon,  Guillaume Rouillé , Antoine Vicent and Balthazar Arnoullet, who was also the printer of this unique edition, in  Lyons . [ 21 ]  For developing a bigger work and to blur the mark of Michel de Villeneuve, they hired the expert on De Materia Medica,  Pietro Andrea Mattioli . [ 26 ]


Pietro Andrea Mattioli  was a renowned botanist and physician. He published a translation of De Materia Medica [ 27 ]  into Italian in 1544 and ten years later published a work in Latin with all the plants of  Dioscorides  and 562 woodcut illustrations. [ 7 ]  It appeared in 1554, printed by Vicenzo Valgrisi, in  Venice . Mattioli made a massive contribution to the original text of Pedani's Dioscorides. [ 27 ]  In some sections Mattioli added information that exceeded 15 times the length of the original text.  It resulted in a very big extension of the work, in beauty and information. It was later translated into German, French and  Bohemian . [ 7 ]


Mattioli held a post in the Imperial Court as physician to  Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria , [ 27 ]  and the Emperor  Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor . [ 7 ]  This position granted him an immense influence. He frequently tested the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners in order to popularize his works. [ 4 ]  He also affirmed that Jean Ruel had declared some information in the lycopsis chapter of his Materia Medica. This is false, but still Mattioli used it as a reason for attacking Ruel. [ 7 ]  He did not tolerate either rivals nor corrections. The naturalists and physicians daring to disagree with him, or who had corrected him, were attacked. The list of important characters that were admonished, rebuked, or pursued by the  Inquisition  contains Wieland,  Anguillara ,  Gesner ,  Lusitanus  and others. This made editions of Matioli's De Materia Medica omnipresent throughout the continent, especially in northern Europe. [ 27 ]


In 1554 the physician  Andres Laguna  published his Annotations on  Dioscorides  of  Anazarbus [ 28 ]  printed by  Guillaume Rouillé  in Lyons. Laguna was the first to translate De Materia Medica into  Castilian . [ 28 ]  His translation was made from one of the Latin editions of Jean Ruel. It was also based on classes Laguna took from Ruel as his pupil in Paris. Laguna points out some of his teacher's erroneous translations, and adds many commentaries, which make up more than half of the total work.


Laguna explored [ 28 ]  many  Mediterranean  areas and obtained results concerning many new herbs; he also added these prescriptions and commentaries to the recipes and teachings of Pedanius' Dioscorides. He also includes some animal and mineral products but only those related to simple medicines, that is, animal and  mineral  products that are medicine or are parts of a medical compound. [ 29 ]  This was not an illustrated work. In 1555 he re-edited this work with  woodcuts . [ 28 ]
It was reprinted twenty-two times by the end of the 18th century; Laguna wrote very well, with explanations and practical commentaries. [ 29 ]  He refers to anecdotes, adds commentaries on the plants, provides their synonyms in different languages, and explains their uses in the 16th century. These qualities and the number of woodcuts made this work very popular and appreciated in medicine far beyond the 16th century. He had problems with Mattioli for using some of his commentaries without mentioning him. [ 29 ]


Laguna had problems with the  Inquisition , just like  Michel de Villeneuve , for both were  jewish - converso , [ 30 ]  a fact that could have made them limit their commentaries to avoid risks. Nevertheless, he was the physician of  Charles V  and the  Pope Julius III , [ 28 ]  and that helped to establish his work as the last word in Materia Medica, and as the basis of Spanish botany. [ 31 ]


The physician  Valerius Cordus , son of the famous botanist Euricius Cordus, went through many woods and mountains discovering hundreds of new herbs. [ 32 ]  He gave lectures on Dioscorides at the  University of Wittenberg , which experts from the university attended. Cordus had no intention of publishing his work. Five years after his death, a Materia Medica with commentaries was published. [ 33 ]  It contained the index of the  Botanologicon , the outstanding work of his father Euricius, who developed a scientific classification of the plants. The following pages are on  Gesner 's Nomenclature, [ 34 ]   relating the different synonyms used for referring to the same plants of the Dioscorides work.


The abstracts of the lectures of Valerius Cordus go from page 449 to 553 as commentaries. This section consisted of a very refined explanation of Dioscorides' teachings with more specifics on the variety of plants [ 35 ]  and habitats, and corrections of errors. Cordus refers to both his and his father's observations.  Eucharius Rösslin 's herbal [ 36 ]  illustrations are prominent in this work, followed by 200 of  Fuchs . This work and the model of botanical description and, many consider it the boldest innovation that was made by any botanist of the 16th century. [ 37 ]


The French physician Martin Mathee published in 1553 the French translation of De Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet, in Lyons. This granted much more access for the students of medicine to the teachings. [ 4 ]


The Greek version was reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529, and reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529. Between 1555 and 1752 there were at least 12 Spanish editions; and as many in Italian from 1542. French editions appeared from 1553; and German editions from 1546. [ 7 ]


The ancient phrase survives in modified form in the  British Medical Journal ' s long-established "Materia Non Medica" column, the title indicating non-medical material that doctors wished to report from their travels and other experiences. For example, in June 1977, the journal contained "Materia Non Medica" reports on an exhibition at the  Whitechapel Art Gallery  by a London physician, the making of matches by hand in an Indian village by a  missionary  general practitioner, and a cruise to Jamaica by a  University of the West Indies  lecturer in medicine. [ 38 ]


A subscription-based product of the  International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use  (ICH), MedDRA or Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities is a clinically validated international  medical terminology  dictionary- thesaurus  used by regulatory authorities and the biopharmaceutical industry during the regulatory process, from pre-marketing (clinical research phase 0 to phase 3) to post-marketing activities (pharmacovigilance or clinical research phase 4), and for safety information data entry, retrieval, evaluation, and presentation. [ 1 ]  Also, it is the  adverse event  classification dictionary. [ 2 ]


The first version of MedDRA was released in 1999 in English and Japanese.


MedDRA is now translated into Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. [ 3 ]   In MedDRA version 25.0, Swedish and Latvian translations were also added. [ 4 ]


In many countries/regions the use of MedDRA by  biopharmaceutical  companies is mandated for safety reporting.
Many other industries, including  tobacco  and  cosmetics , are also beginning to use MedDRA for capturing adverse health events.


All Regulatory Members of ICH are expected to implement MedDRA within 5 years.


As of 2020, the following ICH Regulatory Members have implemented MedDRA:  EC , Europe;  FDA , United States;  HSA , Singapore; [ 5 ]   Health Canada , Canada; [ 6 ]   MHLW / PMDA , Japan;  Swissmedic , Switzerland; and  TFDA , Taiwan. [ citation needed ]


Information about the implementation status of MedDRA by ICH Regulatory Members is updated by ICH on its website. [ 7 ]


MedDRA is widely used internationally, with close to 7,500 subscribing organizations in almost 130 countries. [ 4 ]
Each organization, regardless of its number of users, requires only one subscription to MedDRA.


In developing and continuously maintaining MedDRA, ICH endeavours to facilitate the exchange of clinical information through a single standardized international medical terminology that can be used for regulatory communication and evaluation of data pertaining to medicinal products for human use. [ 8 ]
As a result, MedDRA is designed for use in the registration, documentation, and safety monitoring of medicinal products through all phases of the development life cycle. [ 8 ]
The single standardized terminology offers several clear advantages for regulators, industry, and other stakeholders:


The MedDRA dictionary is organized with a five-level hierarchy. The highest or broadest level is System Organ Class (SOC), further divided into High-Level Group Terms (HLGT), High-Level Terms (HLT), Preferred Terms (PT), and finally into the most granular Lowest Level Terms (LLT). [ 9 ]  In addition, the MedDRA dictionary includes Standardized MedDRA Queries (SMQs). SMQs are groupings of terms that relate to a defined medical condition or area of interest. [ 10 ]


SMQs are developed to facilitate retrieval of MedDRA-coded data as a first step in investigating  drug safety  issues in  pharmacovigilance  and  clinical development .


As of MedDRA 25.1, 110 SMQs have been created comprising 120 lower-level SMQs. Additional SMQs are created as the need arises. [ 11 ]


Individual cases are usually coded for data entry at the most specific (LLT) level, and outputs of counts or cases are usually provided at the PT level. The higher levels (HLT, HLGT, and SOC), as well as SMQs, are used for searching and for organizing and subtotalling outputs.


The five-level hierarchy provides degrees or levels of super-ordination and subordination. The superordinate term is a broad grouping term applicable to each subordinate descriptor linked to it. Hierarchical levels thus represent vertical links in the terminology. [ 12 ]


Hierarchies are an important mechanism for flexible data retrieval and for the clear presentation of data. The five-level structure of this terminology provides options for retrieving data by specific or broad groupings, according to the level of specificity required. The Lowest Level Term (LLT) level provides maximum specificity. [ 12 ]


The terminology was not developed as a formal classification or taxonomy; each level in the hierarchy may reflect a variable degree of specificity or “granularity” from one System Organ Class to another. High-Level Terms (HLTs) and High-Level Group Terms (HLGTs) facilitate data retrieval and presentation by providing clinically relevant grouping of terms. Collectively, the HLT and HLGT levels are sometimes referred to as the “grouping terms” in MedDRA. [ 12 ]


The 27 System Organ Classes (SOCs) represent parallel axes that are not mutually exclusive. This characteristic, called “multi-axiality,” allows a term to be represented in more than one SOC and to be grouped by different classifications (e.g., by etiology or manifestation site), allowing retrieval and presentation via different data sets. Grouping terms are pre-defined in the terminology and not selected on an ad hoc basis by data entry staff. Rather, the terminology is structured so that selection of a data entry term leads to the automatic assignment of grouping terms higher in the hierarchy. Multi-axial links of terms are pre-assigned in MedDRA, ensuring comprehensive and consistent data retrieval, irrespective of which SOC is selected at data retrieval.


As of MedDRA 25.1 (September 2022):


MedDRA is hierarchical, multiaxial, multilingual, [ 13 ]  regularly-updated, and strictly maintained by the Maintenance and Support Services Organization (MSSO). ICH holds the  intellectual property  rights (ownership) of MedDRA.


MedDRA is available free for all regulators worldwide, academics, health care providers, and non-profit organizations. The subscription price is based according to company revenue for the industry. [ 14 ]  The Japanese counterpart for the MSSO is called the Japanese Maintenance Organization (JMO). [ 15 ]


Four types of subscriptions are available from the MSSO:


The MSSO updates MedDRA according to subscriber change requests, for example, to add a new medical concept that is not yet in MedDRA or to change/modify an existing concept. The decisions on submitted change requests are made by a team of international medical officers on how to map the terminology within the grouping categories according to a general team consensus. The final decisions are based on multiple factors including the Points to Consider documentation, implications on legacy data, and language considerations internationally.


The MSSO and JMO release updated MedDRA versions twice a year - in March and September. The English and Japanese translation are released on 1 March and September and all other translations are released on the 15th. The March release is the main annual release and contains changes at the HLT level and above along with LLT and PT changes. The September release contains changes only at the LLT and PT level. As of September 2024 [update] , Version 27.1 is the most recent version. [ 16 ]


The MSSO frequently incorporates feedback from the user community to stay abreast of its unique perspectives and nuanced needs.  Input from these constituencies helps MSSO adapt MedDRA accordingly.


As global regulators expand the scope of product types they regulate, there is a corresponding increase in the adaptation of and interest in the proactive use of MedDRA before regulatory mandates. Such expansion has increased in MedDRA terms applicable to many product types.  The addition of the 27th SOC Product issues in Version 19.0 has even further expanded use of MedDRA for product quality, supply, distribution, manufacturing and quality system issue as well as device issues.


The Pharma Letter  (or TPL), is an English pharmaceutical,  generics  and  biotechnology  news and analysis service. [ 1 ]


Coverage includes: [ 1 ]


Barbara Obstoj is the Managing Editor, which in 2009 acquired the archives of The Pharma Marketletter, a publication Barbara owned since 1991 and prior to that edited when it was part of IMS Health. [ 1 ]   She was also the founding editor of  Scrip World Pharmaceutical News  from 1972 to 1976. [ 1 ]


Pharmaceutical Press  is the publishing arm of the  Royal Pharmaceutical Society  (formerly the  Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ).  It is a provider of independent pharmaceutical information.


Its principal publishing focus is the design, manufacture and therapeutic use of medicines, as well as the professional concerns of those working to ensure their safe administration and use. Its international catalogue contains more than 150 print and digital works, with a range of products consisting of reference works, textbooks, professional titles and subscription products.


The most renowned resources include:


The  Physicians' Desk Reference  ( PDR ), renamed  Prescriber's Digital Reference  after its physical publication was discontinued, is a compilation of manufacturers' prescribing information ( package insert ) on  prescription drugs , updated regularly and published by  ConnectiveRx . [ citation needed ]


The original PDR was titled  Physicians' Desk Reference  but was renamed because not all prescribers are  physicians  and the reference is no longer a hardback book used on a desk. While marketed as a means of providing physicians with the full legally mandated information relevant to writing prescriptions, it was widely available in  libraries  and  bookstores , was widely used by other medical specialists, and was sometimes valuable to the  layman . The book was distributed for free to all licensed medical doctors in America;  only drugs which drug manufacturers paid to appear, appeared in the PDR, and no generic drugs were listed.


The 71st Edition, published in 2017, was the final hardcover edition, weighed in at 4.6 pounds (2.1 kg) and contained information on over 1,000 drugs. [ 1 ]  Since then, the PDR has been available online for free.


The  Physicians' Desk Reference  was first published in 1947 by Medical Economics Inc., a magazine publisher founded by Lansing Chapman. [ 2 ]  Medical Economics Inc. merged with Reinhold Publishing in 1966 to form Chapman-Reinhold. [ 3 ]   Litton Industries , which owned the  American Book Company , acquired Chapman-Reinhold in 1968. [ 4 ]  Litton sold its publishing business to the  International Thomson Organization  (ITO) in 1981. [ 5 ]


ITO successor  Thomson Reuters  sold the  Physicians' Desk Reference  to  Lee Equity Partners  in 2009; Lee formed the new parent company PDR Network. Lee sold PDR Network to  Genstar Capital  in 2015. [ 6 ]  Genstar merged PDR Network into the new company ConnectiveRx. [ 7 ]


The  PDR  material contained includes:


The PDR has several versions and related volumes:


Therapeutic Target Database  ( TTD ) is a pharmaceutical and medical repository [ 1 ]  constructed by the Innovative Drug Research and Bioinformatics Group (IDRB) at  Zhejiang University, China  and the Bioinformatics and Drug Design Group at the  National University of Singapore . It provides information about known and explored therapeutic  protein  and  nucleic acid  targets, [ 2 ]  the targeted disease, [ 3 ]  pathway information [ 4 ]  and the corresponding drugs directed at each of these targets. [ 1 ]  Detailed knowledge about target function, sequence, 3D structure, ligand binding properties,  enzyme  nomenclature and drug structure, therapeutic class, and clinical development status. [ 1 ]  TTD is freely accessible without any login requirement at  https://idrblab.org/ttd/ .


This database contains 3,730 therapeutic targets (532 successful, 1,442 clinical trial, 239 preclincial/patented and 1,517 research targets) and 39,862 drugs (2,895 approved, 11,796 clinical trial, 5,041 preclincial/patented and 20,130 experimental drugs). The targets and drugs in TTD cover 583 protein biochemical classes and 958 drug therapeutic classes, respectively. [ 1 ]  The latest version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) codes released by WHO are incorporated in TTD to facilitate the clear definition of disease/disease class. [ 5 ]


Target validation normally requires the determination that the target is expressed in the disease-relevant cells/tissues, [ 6 ]  it can be directly modulated by a drug or drug-like molecule with adequate potency in biochemical assay, [ 7 ]  and that target modulation in cell and/or animal models ameliorates the relevant disease phenotype. [ 8 ]  Therefore, TTD collects three types of target validation data: [ 9 ]


The therapeutic targets in TTD are categorized into successful target, clinical trial target, preclinical target, patented target, and literature-reported target, which are defined by the highest status of their corresponding drugs.


The molecular types of therapeutic targets in TTD include protein, nucleic acid, and other molecule.


The main drug types in TTD include small molecule, antibody, nucleic acid drug, cell therapy, gene therapy and vaccine.


■  Target druggability illustrated by molecular interactions or regulations;


■  Target druggability characterized by different human system features;


■  Target druggability reflected by diverse cell-based expression variations;


■  Structure-based activity landscape and drug-like property profile of targets;


■  Prodrugs together with their parent drug and target;


■  Co-targets modulated by approved/clinical trial drugs;


■  Poor binders and non-binders of targets;


■  Target regulators (microRNAs & transcription factors) and target-interacting proteins;


■  Patented agents and their targets (structures and experimental activity values if available);


■  Differential expression profiles and downloadable data of targets in patients and healthy individuals;


■  Target combination of multitarget drugs and combination therapies;


■  Cross-links of most TTD target and drug entries to the corresponding pathway entries;


■  Access of the multiple targets and drugs cross-linked to each of these pathway entries;


■  Biomarkers for disease conditions;


■  Drug scaffolds for drugs/leads;


■  Target validation information (drug-target-disease);


■  Quantitative structure activity relationship models (QSAR) for compounds;


■  Clinical trial drugs and their targets;


■  Similarity target and drug search.


The Top 100 Drugs: Clinical Pharmacology and Practical Prescribing  is a pocket-size  medical manual  focusing on the most commonly prescribed medicines by the British  National Health Service  (NHS). It was first published by  Churchill Livingstone ,  Elsevier , in 2014, revised in a second edition in 2018, and again in 2022 in a third edition. It is authored by four  clinical pharmacologists  from  St George's Hospital , London; Andrew Hitchings, Dagan Lonsdale, Daniel Burrage and  Emma Baker .


The drugs are described in alphabetical order, with each drug or  drug class  on a double page. Each is subsequently explained in terms of clinical pharmacology and practical prescribing.  Intravenous fluids  are dealt with later in the book, followed by a self-assessment.


The book received a review in  Pulse , and in 2018 was listed as an essential reference book for junior doctors by the  Pharmaceutical Journal .


The Top 100 Drugs  is a  medical manual  which aims to reduce risks in prescribing. It includes a list of commonly prescribed medicines by the British  NHS , for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in the UK. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]  It was first published as an  e-book  by  Churchill Livingstone ,  Elsevier , in 2014. [ 2 ]  A second edition was published in 2018. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


The first edition was based on the 100 most frequently prescribed drugs by the NHS in 2006–2009, first described in the  British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology  in 2011 by  Emma Baker , who identified the drugs with how they appear in the  British National Formulary  ( BNF ). [ 5 ] [ 6 ]  The book is authored by Baker and three other  clinical pharmacologists  from  St George's Hospital ; Andrew Hitchings, Dagan Lonsdale and Daniel Burrage, [ 4 ]  and takes into account suggestions from junior doctors. [ 4 ] [ 7 ]  The list was revised in 2015, using data collected from a larger dataset to check that no significant changes had occurred, and formed the basis of the second edition, in which 11 drugs were replaced and the number of self-assessment questions doubled. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]  A third edition was released in 2022. [ 8 ]


The book has 325 pages and being 180 mm (7.1 in) in height and 100 mm (3.9 in) width, it can fit in a pocket. [ 7 ] [ 9 ]  There is a contents page, followed by a list of abbreviations and an introduction. [ 10 ]


The introduction states how the most frequently prescribed drugs in primary and secondary care were identified. [ 6 ]  Each drug or  class of drugs  is listed in alphabetical order, displayed on a double page and explained in two sections; clinical pharmacology and practical prescribing. [ 6 ] [ 7 ]  These are then divided into; [ 6 ]


The pharmacology of a drug or drug class is presented with guidance on prescribing. A drug can also be located by organ system or by clinical indication. [ 10 ]   Intravenous fluids  are dealt with towards the end of the book, followed by a self assessment and an index. [ 10 ]  Unlike the original list, the second includes the newer  diabetic drugs ,  blood thinners  and anti-epileptics such as  levetiracetam . [ 5 ]


In 2014, the book received a review from a  general practitioner  in  Pulse , in which they felt it to be aimed towards those unfamiliar with prescribing, but useful as an aid to revising drugs. [ 7 ]  It was mentioned in the  International Journal of Clinical Skills , [ 11 ]  and in 2018, the  Pharmaceutical Journal  listed the book in their "nine essential resources for preregistration trainees". [ 3 ]


Pharmacy  is the  science  and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring  medications , aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of  medicines . It is a miscellaneous science as it links  health sciences  with  pharmaceutical sciences  and  natural sciences . The professional practice is becoming more clinically oriented as most of the drugs are now manufactured by pharmaceutical industries. Based on the setting, pharmacy practice is either classified as community or institutional pharmacy. Providing direct patient care in the community of institutional pharmacies is considered  clinical pharmacy . [ 1 ]


The scope of pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as  compounding  and dispensing of medications. It also includes more modern services related to  health care  including clinical services, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information with patient counselling.  Pharmacists , therefore, are experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who optimize the use of medication for the benefit of the patients.


An establishment in which pharmacy (in the first sense) is practiced is called a  pharmacy  (this term is more common in the United States) or  chemists  (which is more common in Great Britain, though  pharmacy  is also used). [ citation needed ]  In the United States and Canada,  drugstores  commonly sell medicines, as well as miscellaneous items such as  confectionery ,  cosmetics ,  office supplies ,  toys ,  hair care  products and  magazines , and occasionally refreshments and groceries.


In its investigation of herbal and chemical ingredients, the work of the  apothecary  may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry and  pharmacology , prior to the formulation of the  scientific method . [ citation needed ]


The field of pharmacy can generally be divided into various disciplines:


The boundaries between these disciplines and with other sciences, such as biochemistry, are not always clear-cut.
Often, collaborative teams from various disciplines (pharmacists and other scientists) work together toward the introduction of new therapeutics and methods for patient care. However, pharmacy is not a basic or biomedical science in its typical form. Medicinal chemistry is also a distinct branch of synthetic chemistry combining pharmacology, organic chemistry, and chemical biology.


Pharmacology  is sometimes considered the fourth discipline of pharmacy. Although pharmacology is essential to the study of pharmacy, it is not specific to pharmacy. Both disciplines are distinct. Those who wish to practice both pharmacy (patient-oriented) and pharmacology (a biomedical science requiring the scientific method) receive separate training and degrees unique to either discipline.


Pharmacoinformatics  is considered another new discipline, for systematic drug discovery and development with efficiency and safety.


Pharmacogenomics is the study of genetic-linked variants that effect patient clinical responses, allergies, and metabolism of drugs. [ 2 ]


The  World Health Organization  estimates that there are at least 2.6 million pharmacists and other pharmaceutical personnel worldwide. [ 3 ]


Pharmacists are  healthcare professionals  with specialized education and training who perform various roles to ensure optimal  health  outcomes for their patients through the quality use of medicines.  Pharmacists  may also be  small business  proprietors, owning the pharmacy in which they practice. Since pharmacists know about the mode of action of a particular drug, and its metabolism and physiological effects on the human body in great detail, they play an important role in optimization of drug treatment for an individual.


Pharmacists are represented internationally by the  International Pharmaceutical Federation  (FIP), an  NGO  linked with  World Health Organization  (WHO). They are represented at the national level by  professional organisations  such as the  Royal Pharmaceutical Society  in the UK,  Pharmaceutical Society of Australia  (PSA),  Canadian Pharmacists Association  (CPhA),  Indian Pharmacist Association  (IPA),  Pakistan Pharmacists Association  (PPA),  American Pharmacists Association  (APhA), and the  Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society  (MPS). [ 4 ]


In some cases, the representative body is also the registering body, which is responsible for the regulation and  ethics  of the profession.


In the United States, specializations in pharmacy practice recognized by the  Board of Pharmacy Specialties  include: cardiovascular,  infectious disease ,  oncology , pharmacotherapy, nuclear,  nutrition , and  psychiatry . [ 5 ]  The  Commission for Certification in Geriatric Pharmacy  certifies pharmacists in geriatric pharmacy practice. The  American Board of Applied Toxicology  certifies pharmacists and other medical professionals in applied  toxicology .


Pharmacy technicians support the work of pharmacists and other health professionals by performing a variety of pharmacy-related functions, including dispensing prescription drugs and other medical devices to patients and instructing on their use. They may also perform administrative duties in pharmaceutical practice, such as reviewing prescription requests with medic's offices and insurance companies to ensure correct medications are provided and payment is received.


Legislation requires the supervision of certain pharmacy technician's activities by a pharmacist. The majority of pharmacy technicians work in  community pharmacies . In hospital pharmacies, pharmacy technicians may be managed by other senior pharmacy technicians. In the UK the role of a PhT in hospital pharmacy has grown and responsibility has been passed on to them to manage the pharmacy department and specialized areas in pharmacy practice allowing pharmacists the time to specialize in their expert field as medication consultants spending more time working with patients and in research. Pharmacy technicians are registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC). The GPhC is the regulator of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy premises.


In the US, pharmacy technicians perform their duties under the supervision of pharmacists. Although they may perform, under supervision, most dispensing, compounding and other tasks, they are not generally allowed to perform the role of counseling patients on the proper use of their medications. Some states have a legally mandated  pharmacist-to-pharmacy technician ratio .


Dispensing assistants are commonly referred to as "dispensers" and in community pharmacies perform largely the same tasks as a pharmacy technician. They work under the supervision of pharmacists and are involved in preparing (dispensing and labelling) medicines for provision to patients.


In the UK, this group of staff can sell certain medicines (including pharmacy only and general sales list medicines) over the counter. They cannot prepare prescription-only medicines for supply to patients.


The earliest known compilation of medicinal substances was the  Sushruta Samhita , an Indian  Ayurvedic treatise  attributed to  Sushruta  in the 6th century BC. However, the earliest text as preserved dates to the 3rd or 4th century AD.


Many  Sumerian  (4th millennium BC – early 2nd millennium BC) cuneiform  clay tablets  record prescriptions for medicine. [ 6 ]


Ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge was recorded in various papyri such as the  Ebers Papyrus  of 1550 BC, and the  Edwin Smith Papyrus  of the 16th century BC.


In  Ancient Greece ,  Diocles of Carystus  (4th century BC) was one of several men studying the medicinal properties of plants. He wrote several treatises on the topic. [ 7 ]  The Greek physician  Pedanius Dioscorides  is famous for writing a five-volume book in his native Greek Περί ύλης ιατρικής in the 1st century AD. The Latin translation  De Materia Medica  ( Concerning medical substances ) was used as a basis for many medieval texts and was built upon by many middle eastern scientists during the  Islamic Golden Age , themselves deriving their knowledge from earlier Greek  Byzantine medicine . [ 8 ]


Pharmacy in China  dates at least to the earliest known Chinese manual, the  Shennong Bencao Jing  ( The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic ), dating back to the 1st century AD. It was compiled during the  Han dynasty  and was attributed to the mythical  Shennong . Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript "Recipes for 52 Ailments", found in the  Mawangdui , sealed in 168 BC.


In Japan, at the end of the  Asuka period  (538–710) and the early  Nara period  (710–794), the men who fulfilled roles similar to those of modern pharmacists were highly respected.  The place of pharmacists in society was expressly defined in the  Taihō Code  (701) and re-stated in the  Yōrō Code  (718).  Ranked positions in the pre- Heian  Imperial court were established; and this organizational structure remained largely intact until the  Meiji Restoration  (1868).  In this highly stable hierarchy, the pharmacists—and even pharmacist assistants—were assigned status superior to all others in health-related fields such as physicians and acupuncturists. In the Imperial household, the pharmacist was even ranked above the two personal physicians of the Emperor. [ 9 ]


There is a stone sign for a pharmacy shop with a tripod, a mortar, and a pestle opposite one for a doctor in the Arcadian Way in Ephesus near Kusadasi in Turkey. [ 10 ]  The current Ephesus dates back to 400 BC and was the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the world.


In  Baghdad  the first pharmacies, or drug stores, were established in 754, [ 11 ]  under the  Abbasid Caliphate  during the  Islamic Golden Age . By the 9th century, these pharmacies were state-regulated. [ 12 ] [ unreliable source? ]


The advances made in the Middle East in  botany  and  chemistry  led  medicine in medieval Islam  substantially to develop  pharmacology .  Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi  (Rhazes) (865–915), for instance, acted to promote the medical uses of chemical compounds.  Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi  (Abulcasis) (936–1013) pioneered the preparation of medicines by  sublimation  and  distillation . His  Liber servitoris  is of particular interest, as it provides the reader with recipes and explains how to prepare the "simples" from which were  compounded  the complex drugs then generally used. Sabur Ibn Sahl (d 869), was, however, the first physician to record his findings in a  pharmacopoeia , describing a large variety of drugs and remedies for ailments.  Al-Biruni  (973–1050) wrote one of the most valuable Islamic works on pharmacology, entitled  Kitab al-Saydalah  ( The Book of Drugs ), in which he detailed the properties of drugs and outlined the role of pharmacy and the functions and duties of the pharmacist.  Avicenna , too, described no less than 700 preparations, their properties, modes of action, and their indications. He devoted in fact a whole volume to simple drugs in  The Canon of Medicine . Of great impact were also the works by  al-Maridini of Baghdad  and  Cairo , and  Ibn al-Wafid  (1008–1074), both of which were printed in  Latin  more than fifty times, appearing as  De Medicinis universalibus et particularibus  by ' Mesue ' the younger, and the  Medicamentis simplicibus  by ' Abenguefit '.  Peter of Abano  (1250–1316) translated and added a supplement to the work of al-Maridini under the title  De Veneris . Al-Muwaffaq's contributions in the field are also pioneering. Living in the 10th century, he wrote  The foundations of the true properties of Remedies , amongst others describing  arsenious oxide , and being acquainted with  silicic acid . He made clear distinction between  sodium carbonate  and  potassium carbonate , and drew attention to the poisonous nature of  copper  compounds, especially copper  vitriol , and also  lead  compounds. He also describes the  distillation of sea-water  for drinking. [ 13 ] [ verification needed ]


In  Europe , pharmacy-like shops began to appear during the 12th century. In 1240, emperor  Frederic II  issued a decree by which the physician's and the apothecary's professions were separated. [ 14 ]


There are pharmacies in Europe that have been in operation since medieval times. In  Florence , Italy, the director of the museum in the  former  Santa Maria Novella pharmacy  says that the pharmacy there dates back to 1221. [ 15 ]  In  Trier  (Germany), the  Löwen-Apotheke  is in operation since 1241, the oldest pharmacy in Europe in continuous operation. [ 16 ]  In  Dubrovnik  (Croatia), a pharmacy that first opened in 1317 is located inside the Franciscan monastery: it is the 2nd oldest pharmacy in Europe that is still operating. [ 17 ] [ 18 ]  In  the Town Hall Square of  Tallinn  (Estonia), there is a pharmacy dating from at least 1422. [ citation needed ]   The medieval  Esteve Pharmacy , located in  Llívia , a  Catalan   enclave  close to  Puigcerdà , is a museum: the building dates back to the 15th century and the museum keeps  albarellos  from the 16th and 17th centuries, old prescription books and antique drugs.