Pharmacopeia

Now here is a local pharmacist with a bit of imagination - who has gathered together the historical reminders of her trade. Actually, it works quite well - because you are sort of compelled to stop and admire the collection - or see if there is anything you can recognise.

Pharmacopeia refers not to this collection, but to lists of drugs, how to make them and what they look like.

Pliny lived and worked in the first century AD - and is credited with being the first to create this kind of essential work in support of physicians.

Today, the drug industry is mega business - and it all becomes a matter of economics. The news this week is that patients here will be denied a particular drug for stomach cancer - "because it is not cost-effective". I have no idea what it must feel like to be newly diagnosed, and reading that headline.