Review of the book „Arzneiformenlehre“ (lessons of drug dosage forms)

Written by Dr. Janet Thode Posted in Think out of the box

In today's blog article I’d like to think outside the box and describe my impressions of the book "Arzneiformenlehre" by Uwe Weidenauer (2nd edition, 2019, published in “wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft Stuttgart”, ISBN: 978-3-8047-3187-5).

This book has accompanied me on the last holiday and some relaxed days at the pool I dipped into it. Since I mainly worked in the fields of parenteralia so far, I thought it might make sense to get also a little bit familiar with the production of other dosage forms such as tablets, drops or ointments. This book offers a possibility, although the viewpoint has surprised me a bit. It is often written from the perspective of manufacturing in the pharmacy, which is quite interesting, but what I didn’t expect.

 

What I liked…

I really liked the extremely clear and didactic design of the book with keywords on the edge, color-coded check boxes, appropriate tabulation and illustration. The multiple choice questions certainly help the student to prepare for his exams and recap what he has read. For me, they just induced sweat drops on my forehead while sitting in the sun ;-) But I'm probably not the target group either... I also liked the biopharmaceutical backgrounds of the individual dosage forms as well as the corresponding measurement procedures ("special examinations") and other short theoretical introductions, even if some of them were still known from my studies and the time afterwards. I also liked the introduction to phytopharmaceuticals and homeopathic preparations, as this was completely unknown to me.

The presentation of every possible excipient to be used I perceived as very, very lengthy. Sometimes I had the impression that the whole book is just made up of excipients... In case anything was told about manufacturing techniques, it was much too short from my point of view.

 

What’s the yield…?

Some brain effort during relaxed days, so that the gray cells don’t start to rust. Thinking out of the box, as some information will certainly be kept, which might prove to be useful someday. It never hurts to learn something new. Some inspirations for additions to already written blog articles that meanwhile have already been incorporated as well as new ideas for potential new blog articles.

And also the feeling of still wanting to learn more...