authors:Ioanna G.Stavrou,Efthymios P.Bokaris In the greek-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire until the end of the 18th century, pharmacopoeia was practiced empirically such as medicine. Several categories of empirical doctors existed like the ones named “vikogiatroi” in Epirus and were similar to the “druggists” in Europe. They prepared their medicines using the instructions of medical wisdom manuscripts (“giatrosophia” in Greek) which they included plenty of recipes in which the ancient medical tradition coming from materia medica of Dioskourides, Plinios, etc. is usually mixed with charlatanism and magic of all kinds. In February 1818 the work of “philosopher, teacher and doctor” Dionyssios Pyrrhos was published with the title “New Pharmacopoeia”. The aim as explained in the book was to “be beneficial and necessary not only to Doctors and Pharmacists but also to each cognitive man, because with this everyone can prepare almost all medicines, know their power and action along with the way of use, the dosage and their adjustment to man’s passions”. The book was printed in 2000 copies and has been recognized as a best-seller of that era. Despite the empiric character of the author’s knowledge it is with this work that the first scientific approach of the art of the preparations of medicines is introduced in the greek -speaking regions, since it is based on the translation of the Italian Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli’s Pharmacopeoa Generale (1814). Brugnatelli was the professor of General Chemistry in Pavia University and had adopted a naturalistic approach of Lavoisier’s Chemistry with which his pharmacopoeia is introduced. In depth research of this transition -from “giatrosophia’ to Pyrrhos’s Pharmacopoeia- demonstrates the conservation of the tradition of materia medica under the view, however, of the “new chemistry” which constitutes the basis of the academic establishment of pharmacopoeia in Greece after it was deliberated from the Ottomans.

This presentation is based on work co-authored by Efthymios P. Bokaris.