The next era is marked by the publication of the first pharmacopœia at Nuremberg in 1542. “For this act,” says Paris, “we are indebted to Valerius Cordus, a young student, who, during a transient visit at that place, accidentally produced a collection of medical receipts which he had selected from the works of the past esteemed writers, and with which the physicians of Nuremberg were so highly pleased that they urged him to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and obtained the sanction of the Senate to the undertaking.” To this slight circumstance we owe the institution of pharmacopœias. The first _London Pharmacopœia_ was, however, not published until the reign of James I., in 1618, of which there were twelve subsequent editions, the last being in 1841. The _Dublin Pharmacopœia_ first appeared in 1807, the last edition being published in 1850. Until the Medical Act passed in 1858, the right of publishing the _Pharmacopœia_ for England, Scotland, and Ireland was vested in the College of Physicians of London, Edinburgh, and Ireland respectively; and as these books contained several preparations similar in name and different in strength, such obvious danger arose for travellers that the _British Pharmacopœia_, published in 1864, became, by Act of Parliament, the standard for Great Britain and Ireland. The Chelsea Physic Garden is the oldest public botanical garden in Great Britain, but there were private ones of older date, such as that of Gerard, the author of _The Herbal_, which was situated in Holborn, and that of Tradescant, the famous Dutch traveller, gardener to James I., who had an extensive garden of exotic plants in Lambeth.