[The military pharmocopoeias in Denmark]

In 1812, the Danish king decided to reform the medicine supply to the military on the initiative of the pharmacist Jens Peter Groth (1785-1832), the tenant of the Royal Orphanage Pharmacy in Copenhagen. Up till then, the military physicians themselves for fixed medicine money had supplied the army and the navy with the necessary medicine, but now it was decided that Groth should establish a military pharmacy to manage the future medicine supply to the army and the navy in Copenhagen and also that the medicial members of the General Direction of the Military Medical Service should compile a military pharmacopoeia for both of the fighting services. The Royal Orphanage Pharmacy was named the Royal Military & Orphanage Pharmacy and the ordered military pharmacopoeia was issued in 1813. Compared with the national pharmacopoeia, the military pharmacopoeia was characterized by a limitation of the number of medicaments and by a simplification of the compositions. These facts were caused by the economic considerations and the duty of the military physicians themselves to prepare the simple medicaments. The subsequent editions of the military pharmacopoeia were published in 1840, 1857 og 1869, but in 1874, the military pharmacopoeia was cancelled, because the medicaments in the military pharmacopoeia were less effectual and less palatable than the medicaments in the national pharmacopoeia, and because the use of the military pharmacopoeia did not result in economic savings.