[Two books printed in Strasburg during the 16th century present in the inventory of the Paris College of Pharmacy Library].

The catalogue of the College of Pharmacy Library, written in 1780, mentioned two books printed in Strasburg during the 16th century. The first one was a Latin edition of PΠερι Υλης Ιατριχης of Dioscorides. The drop caps are enriched by the figuration of episodes from the Bible. The principal interest of this book comes from the identity of his donator, Ioannes Du Boys, apothecary of the Duke of Alençon, the brother of King Henry III. This apothecary was also the author of a pharmacopoeia entitled Methodus Miscendorum Medicamentorum. The second one was a compendium of various titles, which had, most of them, in common to have been written by Valerius Cordus. It contains many illustrations and some of them are especially expressive. Its main interest is nevertheless to be a part of a gift made by a group of Parisian apothecaries, in 1570. This gift is considered as the birth of apothecaries' library, the direct ancestor of actual "BIU Santé pole Pharmacy". The presence of these two books in the library constitutes a testimony of the importance of printers from Strasburg in history.

[The complex travel of cinchona barks between Peru and Québec Hôtel-Dieu, in the middle of the eighteenth century]. / Le circuit complexe du quinquina entre le Pérou et l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, au milieu du XVIIIe siècle.

Duplessis sisters, who were religious nuns in Hôtel-Dieu (Quebec hospital), were exchanging letters with a French apothecary from Dieppe in Normandy, named Jacques-Tranquilain Féret. They asked him to send them in Quebec the drugs and medicines their apothecary needed. Amongst these drugs were cinchona barks that came from Callao in Peru by boat, passed Cape Horn and then sailed to Cadiz, the great Spanish port. Then they embarked to Rouen, which was the French port for goods coming from overseas. The goods from Peru had then to be transported on little fishing boats to Dieppe, where Féret received the barks. The apothecary sent these drugs to Quebec by boats sailing either from Rouen or from La Rochelle. So these Peruvian drugs had to cross two times the Ocean before accessing to North America.

The copy of the Essays of Jean Rey, used by Bayen and Gobet, at the BIU Sante, pole Pharmacie.

The copy of the innovative book written by Jean Rey in 1630, entitied : The Essays on the reasons why the weight of stain and lead increased when they were burnt, which is nowadays kept in the BIU Sante, pole Pharmacie, proved to be the authentic copy which had been used by Pierre Bayer when he rediscovered Jean Rey's Works. It was also the same copy that Gobey used when he real- ized his new edition of the Essays in 1777. This copy first belonged to M. de Villars from La Rochelle, and then was acquired by M. de Villiers, who accepted to lend it to Bayen. The probes for this identification were detailed in the article.

[Nicolas Lemery, a pluridisciplinary Scientist].

Nicolas Lemery was born in Rouen, on November 17th 1645. He entered into an apprenticeship in order to become an apothecary in Rouen, and then he went to Paris in King's Gardens where he became a pupil of Christopher Glaser. He went then to Montpellier where Matte La Faveur was demonstrator in chemistry. When he came back to Paris, he bought an apothecary office and delivered courses of chemistry, in his laboratory, rue Galande. He redacted in 1675 the first version of his Course of Chemistry, which was many times republished and translated in various languages. He developed especially his theories of the reaction between acids and alkalis. He was a Protestant and had to withdraw his office and choose to become a Physician, but when the Edit of Nantes was abrogated, he was converted to Catholicism. In 1697, he published the first edition of his Universal Pharmacopoeia, followed by his Universal Treatise on Simple Drugs in 1698. These two books were both republished and translated many times. His Treatise on Antimony was published in 1707. He became associate chemist at the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1699, and full member in 1700. He died in 1715. He played a very important role in the evolution of sciences.

[Christophle Glaser, one of Lemery's].

Christophle Glaser was born in Basel in Switzerland. He was apothecary of the King's brother and became demonstrator of chemistry at the King's Gardens in Paris. He had a bad reputation reported by Fontenelle or by the Marchioness of Sévigné. He had also been suspected during the inquiry concerning the Brinvilliers' murders. He was also known as the author of a book of chemistry, entitled Traité de la Chymie, that had been translated into German or English. He received Lemery in his laboratory. Fontenelle reported that Lémery left Glaser very quickly to go to Montpellier, but he is supposed to have stayed for a longer time with him. Lemery and Glaser had the same opinion on many subjects and their books were similar on many points. It is then established that Glaser was really one of Lemery's master.

[Pierre Pomet's opinion on Lemery revealed by the project of a second edition of his General History of Drugs, in 1699 ].

General History of Drugs was first published in 1694 by Pierre Pomet, as a big in-folio volume, illustrated by more than 400 engraved figures. It was a very expensive book. In 1698-1699, just after the publication of the Universal Treaty on Simple Drugs by Lemery, Pomet prepared a new edition in-8°, less expensive. Unfortunately, it was not ready for publication when Pomet died in 1699. Only 208 pages were preprint, but together with manuscript mentions written on the exemplar gathered by BIU Santé, pôle Pharmacie, they were sufficient to prove that Pomet deeply felt that Lemery had committed plagiarism, copying even some errors he had included in his first edition.

[Greek science in the centre of the Dialogue between Orient and Occident ].

Most pre-Socratic Greek philosophers originated from Ionia, in Minor Asia, where Achaeans had been installed since the 11th century B. C. During the Age of Pericles, Empedocles of Agrigento, in Sicily, Leucippus and Democritus from Abdera, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, active in Athens, and Socrates in Athens also took over philosophy and science in Continental Greece. Plato, Socrates' disciple and founder of Academia, and his own disciple Aristotle, founder of the Lyceum, and his pupils, such as Theophrastus of Eresos, followed them. In the area of medicine and pharmacy, Hippocrates of Cos and his disciples and followers redacted between 450 and 300 B. C., what is known as Hippocratic corpus. Then came Galen from Pergamum who completed the theory of Humours, during the second century. Nestorian Christians, considered as heretical in the Byzantine Empire, were accepted in Sassanid Persia and carried Greek culture with them. After Arabic conquest and Baghdad City creation, in 762, they translated Hippocratic corpus in Arabic language so that Hippocratico-Galenic theory could pass in Arabic-Muslim world. It was then developed by Al-Kindi in Baghdad, Ibn Al-Jazzar in Kairouan, Razes or Avicenna, both Persians. The 11th and the 12th centuries were characterised by Latin translations, by Constantine the African in Monte-Cassino, Gerard of Cremona or Mark of Toledo. The School of Salerno created then the conditions for the fusion of Greek, Arabic and Jewish medicines. The creation of modern science from Greek philosophy was a consequence of a permanent dialogue between Orient and Occident.

[How to become a pharmacist via the medical juries, during the Consulate and the Empire]. / Devenir pharmacien par la voie du jury médical durant le Consulat et l'Empire.

The law of Germinal an XI organized the education of pharmacists. It offered two different pathways to become a pharmacist. The first one needed three years in a pharmacy followed by three years of courses in a School of Pharmacy (located in Paris, Montpellier or Strasbourg) and the examination had to be passed in the School. The second one needed eight years in a pharmacy followed by an examination in front of a Medical jury. Medical juries were organized in every department and were composed by three physicians and four pharmacists. An interesting document, a book gathering together all the preparations realized during years 1811, 1812, 1813, collected by Claude Duméril in many departments, will allow to study what had been asked to the candidates in Rouen, in 1813, and what were reference pharmacopoeias used.

[A handwritten inscription leading to new information]. / Une inscription manuscrite riche d'enseignements.

Manuscripts written on white pages or margins of ancient books often present some interest for the historian. Here is studied the handwritten inscription on the page facing the frontispiece of the Pharmacopée des dogmatiques by Joseph du Chesne. It referred to the opinion of traditional doctors such as Guy Patin or Jean Riolan about Joseph du Chesne and chemical medicine issued from the theories of Paracelsus. A special interest was given to the pills against plague.

[The Library of the Franciscan pharmacy in Jerusalem]. / La bibliothèque de l'apothicairerie franciscaine de Jerusalem.

The inventory of the pharmacy of Franciscan monks in Jerusalem contained the description of the eighty books they kept in their Library. Most of them could be identified. A great number were of Italian origin, 45 were redacted in Latin, and 32 in an Italian language. 27 dealt with pharmacy, 18 with medicine and 17 were encyclopaedias or hygiene books.

[The gift of pharmacopoeias made by Mésaize to the Society of Pharmacists of Rouen]. / Le don de pharmacopées effectué par Mésaize à la Société des pharmaciens de Rouen.

Pierre-Grégoire Mésaize, a pharmacist of Rouen made an important gift to the Society of pharmacists of Rouen in 1831. 21 Books, mainly foreign pharmacopoeias, constituted this gift. Six were from Germany; five came from United Kingdom, three from Nederland, only two from France, and one from Belgium, one from Switzerland, one from Austria and one from Russia. This diversity of origins was quite informative about the quality of the content of pharmacists' libraries in Rouen at the beginning of the 19th century. Unfortunately these books could not be found nowadays in the Library of the Union of pharmacists of Seine-Maritime.

[The presence of charity books in the inventory of the College of Pharmacy]. / Présence d'ouvrages charitables dans l'inventaire de la bibliothèque du Collège de pharmacie de Paris.

The inventory of the Library of the College of Pharmacy was redacted in 1781-1782 and was completed in 1787. It contained seven charity books : Toutes les CEuvres Charitables by Philibert Guybert, Les Secrets touchant la Medecine, Le Medecin et le Chirurgien des Pauvres by Paul Dubé, La medecine abbreggée en faveur des Pauvres by the same Paul Dubé, Le Traité des-Maladies les plus fréquentes by Helvetius, Les Remedes faciles & domestiques by Mrs Fouquet, and the Manuel des Dames de Charité by Arnaut de Nobleville and his co-authors. If these seven books were representative of the charity books in France, they only represented 2 percents of the total amount of books mentioned in the inventory. That is not surprising because this kind of books were not redacted for pharmacists but for not educated people. All these books had been published before the middle of the 18th century and the charity books recently published were not present. That comforted the hypothesis that the books of the Library came only from gifts by members of the College at the end of their Professional life.

[The birth of two classes of pharmacists, aborted in 1825, but accomplished in 1854]. / La naissance de deux classes de pharmaciens, avortée en 1825, pour ne survenir qu'en 1854.

The "21st ger minal year-11 law", organized two different pathways to access to the diploma of pharmacist, the first one after three years in a specific school and three years of practice in a pharmacy, the second one needing only eight years of practice in a pharmacy, theoretically the examinations should have been similar for both ways. Anyway, this law did not propose any denomination to distinguish between these two kinds of pharmacists. On February 14th 1825, a project was set up: it decided to suppress the medical juries and proposed the creation of so-called secondary schools in charge of the formation of health officers and of second-class pharmacists. It was the first time an official text used the terms first-class and second-class pharmacists. This project was submitted to many criticisms and was never applied. One had to wait until 1854 to see the medical juries suppressed and the two classes of pharmacists created.

[Pierre Bayen rediscovers the Essays of Jean Rey]. / Pierre Bayen redécouvre les Essays de Jean Rey.

Jean Rey, a physician from The Bugue, a little town near Bergerac, published, in 1630, a book entitled "Essays" in which he explained the increase of the mass of lead, when it was strongly heated, by the fixation of a part of the air. This revolutionary publication was not received by the European scientists, because the Father Mersenne, "the secretary of learned Europe", was not able to repeat his experiments. Between 1774 and 1775, Pierre Bayen, who was a military apothecary, published his Works concerning the "precipitate per se", for us HgO, showing that when this compound was destroyed by heating, it produced a gas, and that the mass of this gas and the mass of the mercury obtained were equal to the mass of the "precipitate per se". He concluded that the phlogiston theory was contradictory with the results of the experiments. When, later on, Lavoisier published his important article on the increase of the mass of steal when it was heated in the air, he "forgot" to cite the Works of Bayen. In January 1775, Pierre Bayen published a letter in which he mentioned that he had discovered an exemplar of Jean Rey's book and explained that this physician of the 17th century had supposed the explanation that had been proved by Lavoisier. Nicolas Gobet then published a new edition of the "Essays" in 1777, but this new edition became itself quite rare. An inscription pencilled on the book kept by the British Museum pretends that all the exemplars Lavoisier could find were destroyed. It is not rigorous to conclude on a single document, especially when it is not signed, but it is sufficient to induce doubt.

New modified ß-cyclodextrin derivatives as detoxifying agents of chemical warfare agents (II). In vitro detoxification of cyclosarin (GF): general screening and toxicokinetic aspects of OP scavengers.

As standard therapy of intoxication with organophosphorus (OP) compounds is still insufficient, developing new treatment strategies is urgently required. For evaluating potential of OP detoxification of several compounds correctly, different toxicodynamic impact of OP enantiomers has to be considered thoroughly. It has already been demonstrated that ß-cyclodextrin (ß-CD) derivatives with attached nucleophilic substituent iodosobenzoic acid (IBA) can be regarded as potent OP scavengers due to an accelerating effect on decay of different OP. Herein, six CD derivatives permethylated or not on CD torus as well as differently attached nucleophilic substituent IBA derivative were investigated regarding detoxification of GF as an OP model substance. Acceleration of GF detoxification could be detected for all compounds with highest rate constants for propylene chain linked nucleophilic substituents on CD derivative. In addition, fast initial binding of GF on CD could be observed and is ascribed to formation of CD complexes. Furthermore, terminal plateau phase was detected of about 1% of each enantiomer reflecting the necessity of a quantitative determination at low concentrations. Moreover, this molecular depot formation may represent an additional detoxification pathway for OP.

New modified ß-cyclodextrin derivatives as detoxifying agents of chemical warfare agents (I). Synthesis and preliminary screening: evaluation of the detoxification using a half-quantitative enzymatic assay.

Current treatments of organophosphorus nerve agents poisoning are imperfect, and more efficient medical countermeasures need to be developed. Chemical scavengers based on ß-cyclodextrin displayed promising results, but further investigations have to be performed to evaluate the possibility of application of substituted cyclodextrins as potential detoxification agents. Herein, five new cyclodextrins scavengers were synthesized. New optimal conditions for regioselectively monosubstitution of ß-cyclodextrin at O-2 position were then studied to access to key intermediates. After these optimizations, a new series of three permethylated derivatives was developed, and two compounds bearing an α-nucleophilic group via a three carbon atoms linker were prepared. The ability of these five scavengers to detoxify nerve agents (cyclosarin, soman, tabun and VX) was evaluated by a semi-quantitative biological assay. All the modified cyclodextrins significantly decreased the inhibitory effect of chemical warfare G agents on acetylcholinesterase activity. For this purpose, we showed that the specific interactions between the organophosphorus compound and the oligosaccharidic moiety of the scavenger played a pivotal role in the detoxification process.

[Helen of Troy and medicine, a picture of the "Salle des Actes"]. / Hélène de Troie et les médicaments, a partir d'un tableau de la salle des Actes.

The picture of the 17th century, placed upon the great chimney in the "Salle des Actes", is attributed to the painter Simon Vouet or to his co-workers. It depicts a scene extracted from Odyssey by Homer. During their way-back to Greece, after the fall and the fire of Troia, Helen and Menelaus received in Egypt the famous nepenthes from the hands of Polydamna. An inventory of the possessions of the College of Pharmacy mentioned also helenium and moly. Nepenthes was really cited by Homer as a medicine used by Helen, but helenium was only related to Helen by euphony and moly referred to a totally different part of Odyssey and was not linked at all to Helen. This study points out the importance of mythology so far as origins of Pharmacy are concerned.

[The opinion of Herman Boerhaave on medicines, through a non-authorized book]. / Les conceptions d'Herman Boerhaave sur les médicaments, à travers un ouvrage non autorisé: le Traité de la Vertu des Medicamens.

The treatise of the Virtue of medicines - Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) was a well known physician from Leiden, who was essentially known in France for the syndrome that received his name and for three of his books, which had been translated in French, and had much success during the 18th century, Elements of Chemistry, Aphorisms and Materia Medica. There was also a fourth book, The Treatise of the Virtue of Medicines, redacted by his students from notes taken during his lessons, which was translated in French in 1729. This volume, in in-8e format, of 471 pages, did not have the same success as his other books. It is anyway very interesting, because it shows that Boerhaave, even if he were Professor of Chemistry was not at all an iatrochemist but behaved as an iatromechanic.

[Boerhaave and medication]. / Boerhaave et les médicaments.

Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) was a well known physician from Leiden, who was essentially known in France for three of his books, which had been translated into French, and had much success during thel8th century, Elements of Chemistry, Aphorisms and Materia Medica. There was also a fourth book, the Treatise of the Virtue of Medicines redacted by his students from notes taken during his lessons, which was translated into French in 1729. This volume, in in-80 format, of 471 pages, did not meet with the same success as his other books. It is anyway very interesting, because it shows that Boerhaave, even if he were Professor of Chemistry, was not at all a iatrochemist but behaved as an iatromechanicist.

Optimized strategies to synthesize ß-cyclodextrin-oxime conjugates as a new generation of organophosphate scavengers.

A new generation of organophosphate (OP) scavengers was obtained by synthesis of ß-cyclodextrin-oxime derivatives 8-12. Selective monosubstitution of ß-cyclodextrin was the main difficulty in order to access these compounds, because reaction onto the oligosaccharide was closely related to the nature of the incoming group. For this purpose, non-conventional activation conditions were also evaluated. Intermediates 5 and 7 were then obtained with the better yields under ultrasounds irradiation. Finally, the desired compounds 8-10 were obtained from 5-7 in high purity by desilylation using potassium fluoride. Quaternarisation of compounds 8 and 9 was carried out. OP hydrolytic activity of compounds 8-12 was evaluated against cyclosarin (GF) and VX. None of the tested compounds was active against VX, but these five cyclodextrin derivatives detoxified GF, and the most active scavengers 10 and 11 allowed an almost complete hydrolysis of GF within 10 min. Even more fascinating is the fact that compounds 9 and 10 were able to hydrolyze enantioselectively GF.