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The present (26th) edition of the United States Dispensatory (USD) is an entirely different work from any editions of the last 80 years. While in the past the USD gave substantial information on drugs, it was a pharmacy-oriented text. It gave considerable historical and other detailed information including assays on drugs and drug preparations, much of which also appeared in the United States Pharmacopia (USP) and National Formulary (NF). The details it provided on worldwide drugs and drug preparations (especially those of herbal origin) were unsurpassed, but a great deal of it was not a true reflection of current medicinal use.
The present edition is medicineoriented. This is evident by the new contributors and particularly by (1) the nature and extent of the information it now contains, as well as by (2) the nature of material that has been deleted. Presently it resembles in some measure the old American Medical