June 1, 1887. 
172 THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST OP AUSTRALASIA. 
CoiTespontrente. 
Memoranda for Correspondents. 
Alvtays send your proper name and address; we do not publish 
them unless you iinsh. 
Write on one side of the paper only ; xorite early; and devote a 
separate sheet of paper to each query if you ask more than 
one, or if you are writing about other matters at the same 
time. 
If you send us newspapers please mark what you wish us to 
read. 
Ask us any thing of pharmaceutical interest; \we shall do our 
best to reply. 
We do not hold ourselves responsible 1 for the opinions ex- 
pressed by our correspondents. 
THE EVILS OF DISPENSING BY DOCTORS. 
To the Editor of The Chemist and Druggist of Australasia. 
— Public attention has been excited in England by the 
infliction of a severe fine on a medical man for dispensing his 
medicines and prescriptions; and only giving 13 grains of 
quinine when 60 were ordered. This has opened the eyes of 
the public to a very bad practice, and this colony, being 
young and energetic, should take steps to prevent its being 
followed here. 
The following experience of a pharmaceutical chemist will 
give an insight into the evils arising therefrom ; — 
Arriving in Melbourne in 1852, and becoming a dispenser 
for two eminent surgeons, he received from the consulting- 
room a prescription — 
01. crotonis et 01. Terebinth, ana jiss, divide in two parts, to 
be taken as directed. 
The dispenser returned the prescription to writer and asked 
whether he meant what he had written; the reply was, “I 
intend a heavy dose for tape- worm.” It was to be taken on 
Saturday night and the patient to remain quiet afterwards. 
The dispenser refused to give medicine to last three days to 
the patient, and in the meantime consulted Hood, Cooper, 
Russell, and Turner, chemists, who could find no authority 
for such a dose in any pharmacopceia, The dispenser 
returned to the doctor and refused to dispense the prescription. 
The reply was that castor oil was ordered; ol. crotonis was 
castor oil, and if croton had been meant tiglium would have 
been written, therefore the blame of a mistake would rest on 
dispenser. Afterwards the same dispenser opened on the dig- 
gings for 12 months and then sold out for cash to a gentleman 
who said he was a chemist, and had been with a medical man. 
His first customer was a girl for Is. worth of camphor, she was 
served with a lump of alum, and the cash taken. In another 
townshix? where the doctor resided at an hotel and dispensed 
for himself, the limewash of his room was scraped away, being 
the nearest substitute for powders for his patients. 
When dispensing in the township, the wife of a well-to-do 
farmer called for 20 grains of tartar emetic for Is. When 
questioned she said it was ordered by a doctor in Melbourne 
to be kept by her when up country, and she had been fre- 
quently supplied with it. She put it into a pint of wine and 
gave one or two teaspoonfuls to her children occasionally. 
When the Poison Act came into force she was stopped, as 
she could only make her mark, and as she had lost two of her 
family by acute inflammation, it is possible the sedimental 
doses at the last not being filtered were deadly. 
A polished fellow came into the district saying he was a 
doctor and was called in to see a child. He wrote out on paper 
loz. saltpetre, 2ozs. water camphor, take two teaspoonfuls 
every 4 hours. 
The dispenser refused and the father called and said the 
doctor described all the symptoms, and was sure it would an- 
swer. He had paid 10s. for the prescription. He found out 
afterwards the man was a shoemaker, and got several years in 
gaol for destroying a woman in labour. 
I would suggest that the Pharmaceutical Defence Fund 
should sift out from the registrations of deaths in parts of this 
colony, where possible, statistics of the regietrationa of deaths 
by medical men who supply their own medicines, and doctors 
who send their prescriptions to authorised chemists. My ex- 
perience is that the doctor that dispenses his own medicines 
registers most deaths, although the consulting doctor sees 
most patients and performs most cures. Why so ? 
The dispensing chemist makes his own pharmaceutical 
preparations, as he relies on laudanum, tincture of rhubarb, 
tincture of bark, tincture of cardamons, &c., &c., of his own 
make. 
The dispensing doctors buy their tinctures, &c., which oan 
never be relied on by the pharmaceutical chemist. Also, the 
dispensing doctor flies to the nearest substitute in his stock 
for the medicine required, without studying the advantages of 
his patients. The doctor has not the experience in the work 
of the dispensing chemist to make a reliable dispenser. 
A storekeeper sells bread and knows what it is made of, but 
give him the ingredients and put him in a bakehouse, will he 
turn out a batch equal to a baker? Or give him leather, naili, 
wax, thread, and last, will he mend a pair of boots equal to a 
tradesman ? The same with medicines ; and the public of 
Victoria are well educated and vigorous, and as a whole should 
try legal measures as far as possible. 
H. H. H. 
May 6th, 1887. Victoria. 
[We publish our correspondent’s letter but must enter a 
word of protest against a too sweeping and universal condem- 
nation of dispensing doctors. The practices he mentionsfrom 
his own experience are almost certainly exceptional : 
but that they do occur is quite possible and even pro- 
bable. It is an old adage that a doctor buries his mistakes, 
and so long as any practitioner neglects the precaution of 
having his work checked by independent dispensers he is as 
liable to mistake as other men, and to suspicion that would 
be silenced if he did not dispense. That the great majority of 
the profession is above such suspicion is proved by the 
rarity of its occurrence. — Editor.] 
COMMISSION TO DOCTORS. 
To the Editor of The Chemist and Druggist of Australasia. 
Dear Sir, — I would like, through the medium of your 
valuable publication, to be informed whether the system is 
general, throughout Victoria and New South Wales, of paying 
the medical men a bonus on their prescriptions. Here, in 
Adelaide, it is the custom for medical men to have the name 
and address of their chemist printed on their prescriptions, 
and a patient has to travel sometimes half a mile or more to 
suit the doctor, when his medicine could be procured within 
a few yards ; this method is adopted by ail medicos from M.D. 
downwards, and I think it is very unjust to an independent 
man who scorns to buy the doctor’s patronage* and place 
himself as a tool in his hands. It is also most unfair to the 
public who, in all probability, have to pay far more for their 
medicine by following the doctor’s commands. 
The commission allowed is one third the price of the medi- 
cine. — I remain, yours truly, 
ANTIM. TART. 
Adelaide, May 10, 1887. 
[The system referred to is not current to any great extent 
in Melbourne, and is condemned by nearly every leading 
chemist. What is thought of it by the public, and by some of 
its supporters, will be learnt from our Christchurch letter 
in this issue. — Editor.] 
40/31. — W.S., Sydney. The fruits you sent were submit- 
ted to Baron Sir Ferd. von Mueller who informs us that they are 
Cashew nuts, the fruit of Semecarpus Anacardium L., which 
is a plant of Western Asia, and is found also in Northern 
Queensland. The nuts are also named marking nuts, as the 
acrid juice has been used for marking linen. The juice has 
been used as a caustic. 
06 I 32. Noji-corrosive asks for the composition of Field^S 
Chemical Ink. 
We fear the only chance of ascertaining this, and not at all 
a good one either, is to ask Mr. Field himself for the formula. 
Failing that you might analyse it. Chromium, vanadium, 
and iron are the only three metals generally used as the 
basis of inks. 
