Herbals were illustrated compendiums originally written by hand and then later printed. They contained everything an apothecary needed to know to be able to use simple medicines derived from plants in their preparations. The Greek physician Dioscorides was the precursor of herbals and wrote extensively on the therapeutic effects of remedies obtained not only from plants but also from animals and minerals.

Antidotaria were collections of recipes that dealt mainly with compound medicines, combining different simple natural ingredients. The Greek physician Claudius Galenus was the forefather of the antidotarium, creating a series of compound medicines himself. He organised this broad and diverse subject using deduction and rationality, leaving a permanent mark on the study of drugs for centuries to come.

Public pharmacopoeias contained all the professional rules and regulations associated with selling drugs. They were commissioned by the authorities as guidelines for doctors and apothecaries in order to protect public health. They had lists of medicines that apothecaries had to keep by law in their shops, the rules to follow when preparing them, the various weights and measures according to the place, the prices to charge and regulations to follow when organising the layout of the shop.

Private pharmacopoeias were manuals that gave the apothecary a broader understanding of the art of medicine, with therapeutic indications of the drugs he regularly used and precise bibliographical references on their conventional use. At times they also contained dull lists of simple medicines and strict rules on their usage, information which was normally found in official pharmacopoeias and which fell short of the demands of an art that was beginning to flourish and was fuelled by the apothecary’s imagination and curiosity.