by the day after Palm Sunday, 1618. Sir Theodore Mayerne was commissioned to write a dedication of the work to King James I, and his Majesty's proclamation requiring all the apothecaries in the realm to obey this Pharmacopœia and this only, was dated April 26th, 1618. It will be observed that exactly a century intervened between the incorporation of the College and the production of the Pharmacopœia.
The President was evidently a smart man, but the printer was still smarter, for while the former was out of town for a few days the printer rushed the publication through, "surreptitiously and prematurely," as the College officially declared, with a number of errors and imperfections, on May 7th, 1618. This presumptuous printer was one John Marriot, at the inappropriate sign of the White Lily "in platea vulgo dicta Fleet Street." On December 7th in the same year the College brought out a corrected edition, to which they appended an epilogue, expressing their opinion of their offending "typographus" in terms which left no excuse for not appreciating their dissatisfaction with him.
The first London Pharmacopœia did not err on the side of condensation. It comprised 1028 simples and 932 preparations and compounds. Among the simples were 31 animals and 60 parts of animals or derivatives from them. The herbs named numbered 271, and there were 138 roots and 138 seeds. Among the preparations were 178 simple and 35 compound waters, 3 medicated wines, 10 medicated vinegars, 1 vulnerary potion, 8 decoctions, 90 syrups, 18 mels and oxymels, 18 juices and linctuses, 115 candies and conserves, 43 species or powders, 58 electuaries, 36 pills, 45 lozenges, 151 oils of various kinds, 53 ointments, 51 plasters and cerates, and 17 chemicals.
