[Apollinaire Bouchardat and his Formulaire magistral]

The anniversary of Bouchardat two centuries ago (1806) is a opportunity to reanalyse his book Nouveau Formulaire Magistral, published during more than 90 years (1840-1932), and to emphasize its interest for historians. This book, addressed to physicians and pharmacists, is a huge source of information on health care during the XIXth century. One can find data on Paris' hospitals, as well as usual pharmaceutical formulas or information on spa. Bouchardat and its formulary reflect also the main opinions during this century where pharmaceutical specialties are not well accepted by health care professionals who considered that it was a way for the patients to take care of their diseases without the control of a physician. Bouchardat is also a precursor if one consider that a number of similar books were published after the late phase of the XIXth century to help doctors to prescribe properly the drugs. Some of them will be published on several years, as for the Bouchardat's formulary. Finally, Bouchardat appears as an encyclopaedist of pharmacy and medicine. He succeeded to give a unique synthesis of state of the art information for his time, using his double training of pharmacist and physician. It is probably why this book survived more than 40 years after the death of the initial author.