[French influence in the US Dispensatory of 1843]

The US Dispensatory first published in 1833 will see several editions and some of them are accessible on Internet. We have evaluated more specifically the 1843 edition, at a time where several similar reference books were published in France, and especially l’Officine of Dorvault, published for the first time in 1844. One can observe that the American book refers very often to French works coming from pharmacists, chemists and biologists who are, at the time, key references. They are particularly mentioned when talking about alkaloids, but also concerning herbs characterization and history of their discovery, as well as drugs or new active principles effects and toxicity. As opposed to Dorvault who try to help pharmacists by very practical information, the authors of the Dispensatory are doing a review of available scientific evidences, as an add on of the recently published American pharmacopeia in 1831. Among the main french authors that are mentioned, we can see Henry and Guibourt, Pelletier and Caventou, but also Soubeiran, Vauquelin, Robiquet, Orfila and many others. If the most consistent chapters are related to Quinquina, Opium and morphin, the American book, as l’Officine of Dorvault pay attention to have an almost exhaustive table of weight and measures that are still very different from one country to another. Globally speaking, the French authors are mentioned close to 700 times in the 1843 edition of the Dispensatory.