William August Puckner

Born in 1864, William August Puckner was a Wisconsin-born medical writer and pharmaceutical expert whose career was closely tied to the American Medical Association's work on drug standards and evaluation. Reliable records connected with his published work show him serving with the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry and contributing regularly to medical literature in the early 1900s.

He is most closely associated with Epitome of the Pharmacopeia of the United States and the National Formulary, a reference work prepared for physicians with Albion Walter Hewlett, Torald Hermann Sollmann, and Martin I. Wilbert. The book distilled official drug information into a more usable form, reflecting Puckner's practical interest in making complex pharmaceutical knowledge easier for doctors to use.

Puckner also wrote articles for journals including JAMA and the California State Journal of Medicine, often on questions of drug quality, medical claims, and reform. That body of work gives him a distinctive place among early 20th-century authors whose writing was meant not for literary fame, but to help shape safer, more trustworthy medical practice.