Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
tivity of solutions, determination of gases, proteins, pesticide residues, and
so on.
Finally, a number of Supplementary Chapters describe important
topics such as endotoxin testing, statistical analysis of experimental results
and guides for the nomenclature of complex natural or semi-synthetic
drugs. Supplementary Chapter III F describes the validation of analytical
procedures and contains a glossary of terms and their definitions, such as
specificity
,
accuracy
,
precision
,
detection limit
, etc.
A full description of the huge amounts of information available is
outside the scope of the present text and the interested reader is encouraged
to consult the BP directly. Undergraduate students, in particular, should be
aware of the vast amount of useful and relevant information contained
within the Pharmacopoeia.
At the time of writing, the BP Commission is grappling with problems
associated with control of material for use in homeopathic medicine. In
homeopathy, a medicinal product is considered to become more potent
when it is diluted with inert material. This somewhat counter-intuitive
method of manufacture results in homeopathic preparations which contain
not a single molecule of the original drug (i.e. the preparation has been
diluted beyond the Avogadro number, 6.02
10
23
). Preparations of this
type clearly present a challenge for the pharmaceutical analyst charged with
ensuring compliance with BP requirements! The best that can be done is to
ensure that the stock material from which the homeopathic preparation is
prepared, which may be a conventional drug or a herbal product, is of
Pharmacopoeia quality.
Other pharmaceutical challenges, such as how to label and dispense a
preparation containing nothing but solvent, are (thankfully) beyond the
scope of the present text.
