Pharmacopoeias, Drug Regulation, and Empires: Making Medicines Official in Britain’s Imperial World, 1618-1968 (Intoxicating Histories, 10)

The word "pharmacopoeia" has come to have many meanings, although it is commonly understood to be a book describing approved compositions and standards for drugs.In 1813 the Royal College of Physicians of London considered a proposal to develop an imperial British pharmacopoeia - at a time when separate official pharmacopoeias existed for England, Scotland, and Ireland.A unified British pharmacopoeia was published in 1864, and by 1914 it was considered suitable for the whole Empire. Pharmacopoeias, Drug Regulation, and Empires traces the 350-year development of officially sanctioned pharmacopoeias across the British Empire, first from local to national pharmacopoeias, and later to a standardized pharmacopoeia that would apply throughout Britain’s imperial world.The evolution of British pharmacopoeias and the professionalization of medicine saw developments including a transition from Galenic principles to germ theory, and a shift from plant-based to chemical medicines.While other colon