Western pharmacopoeia

The Chinese pharmacopoeia is extensive. Some of the active ingredients from Chinese herbs have been used in Western drugs for example, reserpine... 

Today, it is estimated that 25% of the Western pharmacopoeia contains chemical entities that were first isolated from plants and another 25%i are... 

Cannabis, or marijuana, has been used for centuries for both symptomatic and prophylactic treatment of migraine. It was highly esteemed as a headache remedy by the most prominent physicians of the age between 1874 and 1942, remaining part of the Western pharmacopoeia for this indication even into the mid-20th century. Current ethnobotanical and anecdotal references continue to refer to its efficacy for this malady, and biochemical studies of THC and anandamide have provided a scientific basis for such treatment (Russo, 1998). 

That to form an American Pharmacopoeia, it is expedient to divide the United States and territories into four districts, viz. the northern, middle, southern, and western. 

The college of physicians and surgeons of the western district of the state of New York, in January, 1819, approved the formation of an American Pharmacopoeia, and appointed Lyman Spalding, M. D. their delegate. 

The 1746 London Pharmacopoeia was the last in which Mithridatium and Galene appear they were absent from the 1788 edition. The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, first published in 1699, dropped Mithridatium and Galene from the 1756 edition. Not all western European countries were so quick to expunge these formulations, for Galene with its vipers appears in the German Pharmacopoeia of 1872 and in the French Pharmacopoeia of 1884. 

Soon after the elaboration by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the Alma Ata Declaration of Health for all by the Tear 2000 , it realised that approximately 80% of the world s population had no access to Western-style healthcare. Any attempt therefore to provide comprehensive healthcare depended on the utilisation of traditional systems of medicine which are almost exclusively plant based. Each continent and area has its own distinct herbal lore and practice but some have become more widely known through migration and through public interest. Many of the plants used in traditional pharmacopoeias are the subject of intense scientific investigation by the pharmaceutical industry looking for new bioactive molecules or for leads to new therapeutic approaches. 

Interest in international pharmacopoeial standards was taken up by the World Health Organization s International Pharmacopoeia of 19S2 and its subsequent revisions. This differs from national pharmacopoeias in that it has no legal authority. Within the beginnings of the development of what is now the European Community, a European Pharmacopoeia) Convention was signed in 1964, by whose terms the signatories undertook to make the standards of the European Pharmacopoeia (EP) the official standards of their countries. The majority of countries in western Europe are now signatories. 

The introduction of Tasteless Ague Drop or Fowler s solution (alkaline solution of potassium arsenite) in 1670 began the ascendancy of arsenic in Western pharmacopoeia. By the end of the nineteenth century, every major disease known was... 

Roy Upton has been trained in traditional Ayurvedic, Chinese and Western herbal traditions, has studied Native American and Caribbean ethnobotanical traditions, and is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild. He is the executive director and editor of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and a member of the Standards Committee of the American Herbal Products Association and advisory committees for the American Botanical Council, AOAC International, and NSF International. Along with being an author and lecturer, Roy was co-founder and past president of the American Herbalists Guild and is the herbalist and director of the California-based herbal company Planetary Herbals. 

The term quality control is used differently around the world. In the Far East, particularly Japan, it refers to what the Western industrial nations call quality assurance (QA), which is discussed shortly. QC in the West refers to the process of monitoring the product to establish whether or not it conforms to specified requirements, for example to demonstrate that a manufactured batch of a chemical used as a pharmaceutical raw material meets all the requirements of the specification published in the British Pharmacopoeia. In fact, this is not true QC, other than to prevent the release and use of substandard product. It only assesses quality, after the process is complete, and this is both costly and of limited operational use. In the analytical laboratory, QC refers to the analyses conducted along with a batch of samples, the results of which are used to judge whether the analyses were made correctly. For this... 

The extract sample 5 derives from the species Viola tricolor which is not official in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and only known in western countries. This species is a low growing species with abundant amount of flowers with a high concentration of flavonoids. 

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