[Collectif] - Codex Medicamentarius Gallicus, Pharmacopée Française - 1908

[CODEX]. Codex medicamentarius gallicus. French Pharmacopoeia drawn up by order of the Government. Paris, Masson et Cie, 1908. 1 volume large-8 (25 x 16 cm), xxii, 999 p., green publisher cloth, stamp of the Ministry of Public Instruction affixed in blind on the first cover, decorated spine and gilt title, bearing the decree of July 17, 1908.

Fifth edition of the national Codex, after those of 1818, 1837, 1866 and 1884. The Codex of 1908 is the legal text to which every French pharmacist had to conform. It was prepared by a commission presided over by Professor Louis Landouzy (1845-1917), who signs the preface. This preface asserts the contribution of “synthetic chemistry” and of the discoveries of Pasteur and Brown-Séquard. The volume thus marks the transition from old herb-based materia medica to modern chemical pharmacy.

The volume opens with the list of abbreviations of the botanists cited (Linné, Lamarck, De Candolle, Jacquin, Thunberg, Ruiz and Pavon, Henri Baillon…). Follow the “Medicaments of the French Pharmacopoeia,” in alphabetical order. Each monograph provides the Latin name, the family, the part used, the characters, the identity and purity tests, conservation, incompatibilities and usage. The botanical monographs (great wormwood, asafoetida, asclepias or antidote, asparagus, witch hazel, hops, almond oil) sit beside the alkaloids and chemical products. These are given with their structural formulas (cocaine, strychnine sulfate), the designation “Very toxic” and the indication of antidotes. Also noted are Smyrna opium, cocaine and gutta-percha.

The end of the volume reproduces extracts from laws and regulations on the practice of pharmacy and poisonous substances: ergot rye (1873), Levant cork (1882), corrosive sublimate (1890), the law of 21 Germinal An XI. An “orange-red” label printed for external-use medicines accompanies it. On the verso of the half-title, an engraved visa authenticates the copy: “ Seen at the Ministry of Public Instruction, the Director of Higher Education, Councillor of State,” signed by Charles Bayet (1849-1918).

The 1908 Codex remains of concrete use for the contemporary reader. Herbalists, phytotherapists and producers of medicinal plants find precise botanical monographs (identification, adulterations, parts used). They also find traditional preparations: vulnerary alcohol, vulnerary species, sirop des cinq racines, tinctures and fluid extracts. Historians of medicine and of drugs read the legal status of opium, cocaine or absinthe a few years before their prohibition. Collectors of apothecary jars, bottles and labels find the explanation of their inscriptions. Novelists and fans of detective literature discover Belle Époque toxicology here.

Overall condition average due to a split on the edge of the first cover over almost its entire width (to be restored), slightly aged industrial paper, scattered foxing and other minor defects.