Cowen has reproduced 13 articles originally published in journals between 1951 and 1987 not only to make them more accessible to scholars, but also to highlight a facet of medical history that he thinks has received too little attention: the material medica and pharmacotherapy that comprised the practice of medicine. They demonstrate the wide variety of materials--animal, vegetable, mineral, and chemical--that were used in medicine. The topics include the influence of the Edinburgh pharmacopoeia and the Edinburgh dispensatories, America's pre-pharmacopoeial literature, and the folk medicine of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.