[José Ignacio Bartolache y Díaz de Posada: his contributions to medicine]

During 18^th century in New Spain, the strong link between religion and science hindered scientific growth. Conservatism and scholasticism pervaded educational institutions. Within this restricted context, a scientific community conformed mainly by creoles fulfilled their desire and need to know more as they had access to European books, which allowed erudite leading figures, such as Dr. José Ignacio Bartolache y Díaz de Posada, propel innovative ideas in medicine and pharmacy. Dr. Bartolache was considered sacrilegious and scandalous by the ecclesiastical authorities of that epoch. He favored the performance of human body dissections to improve medical education, as well as the anatomical proposals of Vesalius against Galeno's classical anatomy. He contributed to the dissemination of knowledge as he created the first medical magazine in the American continent: El Mercurio Volante (The Flying Mercury); he also printed medical pamphlets and flyers, some of which were published in Nahuatl and Spanish, as the prescriptions for martial pills, reformulated by himself. Physician ahead of his time, he was characterized by his professional humanism and the comprehensive treatment of patients; he emphasized the rational use of medications, without distinction of social class. His sensitivity allowed him to bring medical knowledge and treatment of illnesses closer to the most vulnerable. Another of his contributions, ahead of his time, was the recognition he gave women for the intelligence and ability they showed, equal to men, when accessing education.

[Oral and formulated pharmaceutical preparations before the invention of tablets]

Author gave an overview of the main types of the fed and formated medicines used in times before invention of lozenges. Six main types of these pharmaceutical products are to be defined here: 1. conserva 2. electuaria or confectiones 3. morsuli 4. rotulae or tabulae made with sugar 5. trochsci or pastillae and 6. terrae sigillatae. Author defines the single forms, tells their short history and also presents the ways they were produced and the tools and machines needed for their fabrication.

Who invented 'Avicenna's gilded pills'?

This article questions the belief expressed in various histories of pharmacy that the tenth-century Arab physician Avicenna introduced the tradition of coating pills with gold and silver. Although an examination of his Canon documents Avicenna's interest in the medicinal application of gold and silver, no mention is made of coating pills. Nor do other Islamic physicians seem to have been familiar with this practice, any more than such medieval European authors as Arnaldus of Villanova, Raymund Lull or Johannes de Rupescissa. The same is true of medicinal compendia representative of later periods, such as the Ortus sanitatis, Valerius Cordus' Dispensatorium or the Secrets of Alessio Piemontese. The earliest known mention of coating pills with precious metals occurs in a non-medical book, The Golden Fleece (London, 1626), and the earliest mention in the professional literature seems to appear only in the second half of the seventeenth century. The practice of coating pills with gold and silver was to be practiced in Europe into the first half of the twentieth century.