Page:Pharmacopoeia of India (1868).djvu/12

 and it was ultimately decided to divide the articles into two classes, viz. "Officinal" and "Non-officinal;" the first to include those articles officinal in the British Pharmacopoeia, together with those indigenous products of India whose claims as medicinal agents are established on a solid basis; the second or "Non-officinal" list to comprise a large number of articles whose reputation is not so well established, but which, possessing considerable activity, are deemed worthy of attention. In addition to these, there have been included a few drugs respecting which, either from their high repute amongst the natives, or from marked physical characters, it is desirable to obtain further information. Some of the articles in this class will doubtless, on trial, prove worthless, and will justly be discarded in future editions; whilst others, it is expected, will prove valuable remedial agents, and worthy of being eventually transferred to the officinal class.

After much deliberation it was likewise determined to depart from the alphabetical arrangement usually employed in pharmacopoeias, and to adopt one based on a scientific classification, as being better adapted for bringing to notice the numerous articles of materia medica to which it was deemed desirable to call attention.

It was further resolved to depart from the old Pharmacopoeia routine of furnishing a simple list of articles of materia medica, with their physical characters and preparations, and to supply information with regard to their medical properties, therapeutic uses, and doses; to form, in fact, a Text Book which might prove useful to the medical student, and, it was hoped, also, though perhaps in a minor degree, to the practitioner in remote stations where works on materia medica are not always available for reference.

In accordance with these views, it was deemed expedient to place under each individual drug the preparations of which it forms the active ingredient. By this arrangement