Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/11

 reproductions of photographs showing particularly the methods whereby they are produced and brought to our markets, by Professor Tschirch of Berne, is now in course of publication by Tauchnitz of Leipsic. In these humble "Chronicles" it has been impossible to avoid entirely occasional visits to the domain so efficiently occupied by these great authorities; but as a rule the subjects they have made their own have been regarded as outside the scope of this volume.

But the art of the apothecary, of pharmacy, as we should now say, restricted to its narrowest signification, consists particularly of the manipulation of drugs, the conversion of the raw material into the manufactured product. The records of this art and mystery likewise go back to the remotest periods of human history. In the course of ages they become associated with magic, with theology, with alchemy, with crimes and conscious frauds, with the strangest fancies, and dogmas, and delusions, and with the severest science. Deities, kings, and quacks, philosophers, priests, and poisoners, dreamers, seers, and scientific chemists, have all helped to build the fabric of pharmacy, and it is some features of their work which are imperfectly sketched in these "Chronicles."

My original intention when I began to collect the materials for this book was simply to trace back to their authors the formulas of the most popular of our medicines, and to recall those which have lost their reputation. I thought, and still think, that an explanation of the modification of processes and of the variation of the ingredients of compounds would be useful, but I have not accomplished this design. I have been tempted from it into various by-paths, and probably in them have often erred, and certainly have missed many objects of interest. I shall be grateful to any critic, better informed