Abstract
"THE Pharmaceutical Pocket Book" has come to serve two purposes. It introduces students of pharmacy to the principles on which their profession is based, and it serves as a book of reference for the practising pharmacist. The new edition includes the many changes introduced by the new "British Pharmacopoœa" which was published in 1948, and a summary of those provisions of the National Health Service Act which affect pharmacists. There are 20 pages devoted to biochemical analysis and 10 pages of notes on bacteriology. There is a dictionary of synonyms and trade names which occupies 77 pages. This is a formidable, but in some ways a disappointing, list. It is devoted mostly to archaic and picturesque synonyms which cannot be much used nowadays. It contains devil's dung, dragon's blood, doom bark, essence of smoke, hippo wine, little liver pills, madweed, mandrake and nihil album, but not benadryl or neoantergan, 'DOCA', 'BAL', maphar-side, 'DFP', dolantin, demerol, priscol, paludrine or promin. The list would be more valuable if it was brought up to date. There should surely be, either here or somewhere else in the book, a guide to modern synthetic drugs. However, the book contains much information and will, no doubt, serve a useful purpose.
The Pharmaceutical Pocket-Book
Fifteenth edition. Pp. x+430. (London : Pharmaceutical Press, 1948). 12s. 6d.
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The Pharmaceutical Pocket-Book. Nature 163, 589 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163589d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163589d0