The French pharmacist Nicolas Jean-Baptiste Gaston Guibourt (1790–1867) first published this work in two volumes in 1820. It provided methodical descriptions of mineral, plant and animal substances. In the following years, Guibourt became a member of the Académie nationale de médicine and a professor at the École de pharmacie in Paris. Pharmaceutical knowledge also progressed considerably as new methods and classifications emerged. For this revised and enlarged four-volume fourth edition, published between 1849 and 1851, Guibourt followed the principles of modern scientific classification. For each substance, he describes the general properties as well as their medicinal or poisonous effects. Illustrated throughout, Volume 1 (1849) begins with an introduction that clarifies Guibourt's approach to pharmaceutical science. The volume then goes on to describe the properties of minerals.