PHARMACY is that branch of the science of chymistry which relates to the combination and mixture of different substances, for the purposes of medicine.

Its practice presupposes a knowledge of the ultimate principles of the substances employed in its operations, and of their chymical agencies; thence, of the general doctrines of Chymical Science. The elements, therefore, of Pharmacy, properly speaking, are those of Chymistry; and without a knowledge of these, Pharmacy can neither be theoretically understood, nor advantageously practised as an art.

As, however, it would be impossible in this place to give more than an outline or epitome of the elements of Chymistry; and as the second part of this work is intended to contain the analysis as well as the history and an account of the uses of the different articles of the Materia Medica which constitute the subjects of Pharmacy, I shall confine the term Elements of Pharmacy to comprehend those general principles of chymical action which enable us to reason on and perceive the proximate causes of the results of pharmaceutical combinations; and to the explanations of the operations of Pharmacy, with a description of the apparatus.

Table Of Arrangement

Section I. OF THE MORE GENERAL AGENTS INFLUENCING PHARMACEUTICAL COMBINATIONS.

I. Attraction.

a. Attraction of Aggregation.

b. Chymical Attraction, or Affinity.

II. Repulsion. Powers by which it is produced.

1. CALORIC.

2. LIGHT.

3. ELECTRICITY AND GALVANISM.

Section II. OF THE CONSTITUTIONS AND COMBINATIONS OF SUBSTANCES.

1. OF SOLIDS.

2. OF FLUIDS.

3. OF AeRIFORM SUBSTANCES, OR GASES.

Section III. OF PHARMACEUTICAL OPERATIONS, AND THE DESCRIPTION OF THE APPARATUS.