Abstract
THE need for an addendum to the “British Pharmacopœia” which is now ready for official publication was dictated by war-time circumstances which deprived Great Britain of unfettered access to supplies of cod liver oil and olive oil and made it desirable to sanction the use of substitutes for both. The outstanding new monograph in the Addendum is on oleum vitaminatum, a vitaminized oil which is a solution of vitamins A and D containing 1,000 units of vitamin A activity and 100 units of antirachitic activity (vitamin D) in 1 gm. It is clear that the object of the Pharmacopoeia Commission was to provide a standard for a substitute for cod liver oil which, in respect of its vitamin contents, should approximate to the natural product. The vehicle for the vitamins may be “a suitable vegetable oil” the choice of which is left to the manufacturer, with the suggestion that arachis oil would answer the purpose at least as well as any other. Provided the preparation responds to the characters and tests for purity laid down in the monograph, vitaminized oil may consist, alternatively, of a suitable fish-liver oil, or blend of fish-liver oils, thus allowing to commercial firms a generous latitude which is justifiable, and indeed advisable, in a time of emergency. Of the nine other new monographs in the Addendum, seven are related to the cod liver oil problem; they include standards for concentrated solutions of vitamins and for emulsions of cod liver oil itself and its substitute.
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The British Pharmacopœia: Emergency Monographs. Nature 145, 889–890 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145889c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145889c0