Abstract
IT is a well-known fact in medico-historical research that the pharmacopœia, which was published in Stockholm in 1775 under the title of "Pharmaeopoea Svecica", and at that time received with much enthusiasm both in Sweden and abroad, was prepared with the co-operation of Linnæus himself. The keen interest which the great botanist displayed in the production of a newer work, that might be substituted for the antiquated "Pharmacopœia Holmiensis", published in 1686, was also proved in many ways. (For the last-mentioned work see S. Lindroth in Lychnos, 1943, and E. L. Backman in the Proceedings of the Uppsala Medical Association, 1923/24.) That Linnæus already in his youth had his attention directed to this subject is shown by a small manuscript, which, like the bulk of his manuscripts left, belongs to the Linnean Society of London, and which just bears the title "Pharmacopoea Holmensis"; and in the correspondence exchanged for many years with his intimate friend, Dr. Abraham Bäck, president of the Collegium Medicum in Stockholm, the question is raised repeatedly from 1749 onward of a fresh and improved pharmacopœia. "You, my friend, who are the only person at the Collegium Medicum, if anything can be done, should touch up the pharmacopoeia", writes Linnæus on October 23, 1749, and a month later Bäck sent a list of the medicines of animal origin in the older pharmacopœia, from which he wishes to delete more than two thirds. After the College some years later (1753), in conformity with a royal decree, had seriously attacked the task of compiling a new "dispensary book", Linnæus probably followed the development of the scheme with constant interest; this is seen inter alia from the academic dissertations ventilated during his presidency; for example, "Plantæ officinales" (1753), "Censura medicamentorum simplicium vegetabilium" (of the same year), and several others.
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GRAPE, A. A Recently Discovered Manuscript by Linnæus. Nature 156, 351–352 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156351a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156351a0