Complete Text (Part 1)

Class Book 0<fS Copyright N° COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. LESSONS IN PHARMACY BY OSCAR OLDBERG, Pharm.D., DEAN OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PHARMACY A COURSE OF STUDY FOR HOME STUDENTS CHICAGO INTERSTATE SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE AFFILIATED WITH NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, EVANSTON— CHICAGO LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two CoDies Received MAY 21 1906 opyrigM Entry flo CLASS ' (A, XXc. No, COPY B. Copyright, 1904, by Bellows Brothers Company Copyright, 1905, by Bellows Brothers Company Copyright, 1906, by Bellows Brothers Company 0 PUBLISHER'S NOTE A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY Was Written expressly for the home student who wishes to prepare for the examinations given by state boards of pharmacy or for more extended courses in technical schools, such as the School of Pharmacy of Northwestern University. Dr. Oscar Oldberg, the author of the course, was born in Sweden in 1846 and educated in the Gymnasium at Gene. He became a licensed practitioner in pharmacy, and since coming to the United States has risen rapidly into promi- nence. Since the establishment of its School of Pharmacy by Northwestern University in 1886, he has been professor of pharmacy in that institution and dean of its faculty. During this time he has been an editor of pharmaceutical journals and is the author of a number of text-books on pharmacy, chemistry, metrology and related subjects. In 1880 he became a member of the committee of revision of the United States Pharmacopoeia, and has been in active connection with the committee ever since. Not only have Doctor Oldberg's training and experience fibted him to write a course of study which could be followed by students at home, but he has himself had wide experience in directing students under similar conditions. Accord- ingly, this course may be relied upon to be as simple as con- ditions warrant, and so practical that no well prepared stu- dent need fear his ability to carry it through. The papers of the student will be corrected by teachers experienced in correspondence work who have been selected publisher's note by the School under the approval of Doctor Oldberg. The papers written by the students, bearing the careful criticisms and suggestions of the teachers, will be returned in all cases to the former, accompanied by extended and accurate printed answers, which will enable the student to compare his own work with the perfect standard. Interstate School of Correspondence. Chicago, April, 1906. A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY. LESSON ONE To the Student: Read this introductory letter carefully before you begin your study. This course is the result of long years of classroom experience, in which the author and his students were in daily conversation. To adapt this instruction to the needs of the home student has been a pleasing task that, it is hoped, has been successfully accomplished. Though a large number of different subjects are treated in the course, it is a unit. All the parts are closely related and are integral portions of pharmacy. The course is divided into chapters, and the chapters into paragraphs numbered consecutively from the first lesson to the last. The entire work is thus easily available for cross reference. The chapters are grouped into lessons of approximately equal length and difficulty. The early lessons are simple and con- sist largely of definitions and general principles. Later lessons may be more difficult, but it is thought that the logical arrangement and the gradual development of your knowledge will enable you to handle the more technical subjects with ease. Only the first two lessons are sent you at this time. When you have mastered the first lesson, write your recitation paper and mail it to us in the manner and form described in the Student's Guide which was sent you with this lesson. Then, without waiting for returns from us, proceed at once upon the study of your second lesson. More explicit directions are given in the Students Guide. If this plan is followed intelligently you will always have work on hand and will not be delayed by the passage of your papers through the mails. Your papers will be read with care by an expert instructor. His suggestions, directions and criticisms will be plainly marked in red 1 2 A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY ink on your recitation paper and returned to you for further consid- eration. When the course has been completed in a satisfactory manner, your diploma will be sent to you and at the same time you will be given the entire course handsomely bound. This you will always find a valuable reference work. If, in the preparation of all your lessons, you work as directed, you will find when you complete your course that you are thoroughly versed in the subjects taught. We wish you to obtain the greatest possible benefit and are sure that you can, do so only by observing the following general directions: 1. Be regular, systematic and persistent in your work. Select some stated time for your daily study and let nothing interfere with it. 2. If possible, devote at least a full hour to study each day. While you can accomplish something in less time, yet you will find that your thought will be much clearer if you can work continuously for at least that period. 3. The best plan is to begin by reading the first chapter through to the end. This gives you a general idea of what you are expected to learn. Then proceed to more careful study. Do not memorize the definitions, but get the thought so thoroughly that you can make a definition for yourself. 4. You will meet many new words and not a few that are difficult. Use whatever reference books are at hand. The International Dic- tionary contains most of the words used in the course, but some of them are so technical that they are not to be found there. However, the number of words not to be found in the Dictionary is so small that you can afford to look for everything of whose meaning and pronunciation you are not certain. Encyclopedia articles on all the subjects mentioned are helpful, especially those of the more recent publications. It is always worth your while to. watch for articles on topics kindred to your lesson in newspapers and magazines. The habit of looking for such things will always be valuable to you. 5. Study broadly. Try to see all sides of every subject. Have ideas of your own and do not follow slavishly the words of your text. 6. Put yourself into your work. Spend the last part of every study hour in carefully thinking over what you have done. Close your book and try to recall all that you have read. If you persist in this exercise you will be surprised at the increase in your power to hold what you have read. 7. Take time to do your work well. Be patient and thorough, INTKODUCTORY 3 and then be satisfied with small progress at first. As you get further into the subject you will learn more rapidly. 8. These general directions are worth following throughout the course, and from time to time, as you need it, specific advice will be given. 9. Do not hesitate to write us on any subject connected with the course which puzzles you. Your letters will always be answered promptly and with pleasure by us. Address, always, Interstate School of Correspondence, 378-388 Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 111. Introductory 1. Medicines are substances employed to relieve, counter- act, remove or prevent disease or pain, or to defend or promote health. 2. Poisons are substances which, when taken into the body in small quantities, are liable to do serious or fatal injury. The meaning of the term poison cannot be sharply defined, because some substances may be beneficial or wholesome under certain conditions, or when used in relatively small amounts, buts decidedly hurtful or even fatal to life under other conditions or in greater quantities. 3. Since it is evident that disease and pain are associated with abnormal states of the parts of the body and their functions, substances that greatly affect those parts and functions are employed as medicines. The most valuable medicines accordingly include substances which are poisons when abused or ignorantly used, and it is mainly for this reason that all civilized nations prohibit the practice of medicine by persons not possessing a thorough knowledge of the human body and the disorders to which it is subject, and of the nature and effects of medicines. For the same reason, also, the laws of all 4 A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY civilized countries forbid the practice of pharmacy by persons not specially trained for the safe performance of its duties. 4. Pharmacy (from Greek p7iarmahon, medicine) is the scientific-technical business of selecting, preparing and dispensing medicines. The selection of medicinal substances requires the ability to identify them and to determine their quality, purity and strength. Properly to prepare and dispense medicines requires an intimate knowledge of their composition and properties and of the laws of chemistry and pharmacy, together with ample practical experience and skill. 5. Materia Pharmaceutica. The materials out of which medicines are made are derived from the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdom. They include not only substances of decided medicinal activity, but many materials which are valuable chiefly because they are quite without any medicinal effect of their own. Hydrocyanic acid, strychnine, morphine and numerous other deadly poisons are medicines of great value; but water, sugar, lard, wax, starch, gelatin, and other things used as diluents or solvents, or to give body and form to the preparations into whose composition they enter, are also important pharmaceutical materials. 6. Crude Drugs are medicines, and other pharmaceutical materials consisting of unchanged or but little altered or prepared natural products, such as minerals, roots and other plant organs, gums, resins, etc. But the "crude drugs" also include many products manufactured on a large scale for various industrial purposes, such as lime, the commercial or raw chemicals, catechu, tar, alcohol, etc. 7. The Inorganic or Mineral Drugs are comparatively few. Among them are chalk, marble, lime, alum, copperas, blue vitriol, litharge, sugar of lead, sulphur, black sulphide INTRODUCTORY 5 of antimony, black oxide of manganese, mercury, zinc, iron, bismuth, borax, saltpeter, the commercial impure acids and alkalies. When these crude inorganic substances have been purified or converted into preparations suitable for immediate medicinal use, they are no longer called drugs, but chemicals and pharmaceutical preparations. 8. The Vegetable Drugs are numerous and the most important of all crude drugs. They include not only whole plants and parts or organs of plants, as herbs, leaves, flowering tops, twigs, roots, underground stems, barks, fruits and seeds, but also plant exudations such as gums, resins, gum-resins, oleoresins, and such manufactured prod- ucts as opium, catechu, kino, aloes, starch, sugar, olive oil, castor oil, linseed oil, oil of turpentine, cottonseed oil, and many other commercial commodities. About two or three hundred plant drugs are important enough to be described in pharmacopoeias. 9. Animal Drugs were formerly more common than now. Those at present employed include cantharis (Spanish fly), musk, castor, ox-gall, cod-liver oil, lard, suet, wax and honey. Pepsin, pancreatin, dried animal glands, and extracts prepared from animal organs, glands and tissues, are manu- factured products which may be more properly called pharmaceutical preparations, although the pharmacist who dispenses these medicines is rarely the preparer of them. Not a score of animal drugs are medicinally important. 10. Medicinal Chemicals are unmixed single substances of definite chemical structure, such as single elements and chemical compounds in a pure state. Familiar examples are sulphur, iodine, calomel, quinine, carbolic acid, chloro- form, potassium bromide, chloride of iron, glycerin, cream of tartar, Epsom salt, nitrate of silver. 6 A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY Simple water-solutions of chemical compounds are fre- quently called chemicals. 11. Inorganic Chemicals are those prepared from materials derived from the mineral kingdom. They are for the most part compounds of potassium, sodium, lithium, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, iron, silver, gold, copper, lead, zinc, bismuth and other metals, and the compounds formed by the non-metallic elements, chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulphur, phosphorus, arsenic and antimony with one another, and with oxygen and hydrogen. About three hundred inorganic chemicals are sufficiently important to be mentioned in the pharmacopoeias. 12. Organic Chemicals are those prepared from materi- als derived from plants or animals, or from coal oil and coal tar, and from artificially produced hydrocarbons (compounds of carbon and hydrogen) and their deriva- tives. The organic chemicals are composed chiefly of the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and frequently nitrogen. About sixty or seventy organic chemical substances are mentioned in the pharmacopoeias. 13. But many chemicals are of such composition that they belong to both inorganic and organic chemistry. Such are, for instance, the salts formed by organic acids with the inorganic bases, and by the inorganic acids with organic bases. Tartaric acid is obtained from grapes and citric acid from lemons; they are, therefore, organic acids. These organic acids form salts (called tartrates and citrates) with several of the metals, as potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, etc. Sulphuric, nitric and phosphoric acids are inorganic acids; but they form salts with quinine, morphine, strychnine and other organic bases derived from plants. INTRODUCTORY 7 14. Pharmaceutical or Medicinal Preparations are sub- stances prepared either by manufacturing pharmacists or by dispensing pharmacists expressly for medicinal uses. Distinction must be made between stock preparations which are rarely finished medicines, &11& finished medicines which are rarely kept in stock. Stock preparations are generally made by such time- consuming methods that they cannot be prepared for the occasion whenever they are wanted but must be made in advance of the demand for them. But the stock prepara- tions may or may not be medicines ready for immediate administration or application. Many of them are simply materials which require further treatment by the dispensing pharmacist in order to convert them into convenient and effective forms for medicinal uses, or they are combined or mixed with other substances to subserve the requirements of individual cases. Other stock preparations are finished medicines prescribed by physicians and dispensed by pharmacists without modification. 4 Stock preparations may be prepared either by manu- facturers or by dispensing pharmacists; bjjt they are chiefly made by manufacturers. By way of illustration, we may say that manufacturing pharmacists make such preparations as extracts and fluid extracts of vegetable drugs. They supply these and other stock preparations to the dispensing pharmacists, who use them as materials for preparing finished medicines ordered by physicians. Extracts, fluid extracts, oleoresins, tinc- tures and many other classes of pharmaceutical preparations are rarely used without modification, dilution, or other treatment, or without combination with other materials. A dispensing pharmacist may make the stock preparations he uses, and a manufacturer may manufacture pills and other preparations which are finished medicines ready for imme- 8 A CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN PHARMACY diate use. But only the dispensing pharmacist expressly licensed to practice pharmacy is permitted to compound and dispense medicines upon physicians' prescriptions. 15. Galenical Preparations are pharmaceutical preparations prepared by methods which do not result in chemical alterations of the ingredients employed. The transforma- tions of one or more substances into* one or more other substances are chemical alterations; but mere mechanical mixtures, solutions and extracts contain no new sub- stances formed out of the original substances employed as materials. The pharmaceutical solutions are water solutions, alcoholic solutions, and solutions made with mixtures of alcohol and water, or with other solvents. The extracts are either liquid or solid, and the solvent or menstruum employed to make an extract may be water, alcohol, wine, diluted acetic acid, or some other liquid. The extracts include infusions, decoctions, tinctures, wines, vinegars, fluid extracts, solid extracts and oleoresins. The mixtures include not only those made out of liquids, but also mixtures of solids and liquids together, and out of solid substances only. Numerous liquid mixtures are used, and of the dry or solid mixtures we may mention compound powders, pills, troches, ointments, etc. But there are also Galenical preparations not readily classified because they are partly solutions, partly mixtures and partly extracts, or belong to more than one class. Galenical preparations are so named after Galen, because the preparations made and used by that physician and teacher did not include any chemicals or any substances prepared by intelligent chemical processes, since chemistry was unknown in his time. About three hundred Galenical preparations are important pharmacopceical medicines. INTKODUCTOKY 9 16. Chemical Pharmaceutical Preparations are those pro- duced by chemical means. Whenever the materials employed in making the preparations are transformed into new substances, the product is a chemical preparation, and the process of preparing it is a chemical process. The principal materials employed in making the preparation called solution of acetate of ammonium are acetic acid and ammonium carbonate. But the product contains no ammonium carbonate whatever and very little acetic acid; it contains instead a compound called ammonium acetate, which was produced out of the acetic acid and ammonium carbonate. Solution of acetate of ammonium is, therefore, a chemical preparation. All salts, acids, and other chemicals are chemical prepa- rations; but there are many chemical pharmaceutical preparations which are of indefinite composition, or which are mixtures of several substances, and hence are not true chemical compounds, as, for instance, tincture of chloride of iron, syrup of ferrous iodide, "effervescent salts," etc. 17. Extemporaneous Preparations are those not kept in stock but prepared for the occasion whenever required. They include such products as would deteriorate or decom- pose in a comparatively short time, as well as medicines specially ordered to be prepared in accordance with magistral formulas or prescriptions written by physicians to meet the requirements of individual cases. A magistral formula (from magister, master) is a formula or recipe written by one who is authorized or competent to compose prescriptions. 18. Pharmacology is that branch of the study of medicine which treats of the