532 
TIIE ART OF PRESCRIBING. 
likewise be believed in that of medicine. The methods of 
mixing and laying on colours are settled by common con- 
sent among painters, and any deviation from academical 
rules is regarded by them as a piece of quackery ; indeed, 
they have a precedent for the authoritative tone they adopt 
in the success of their time-honoured processes, as they 
appear in the works of the old masters ; and can we point 
to no such precedent in the history of our art ? The con- 
venient forms, the exact quantity to be swallowed, the 
division of doses into four, six, or eight parts corresponding 
with our arbitrary divisions of the twenty-four hours, are 
among the first examples of the usefulness of the old system 
which occur to us ; but we would come to closer quarters 
with our subject, and ask why it is that hospital authorities, 
which have the pow 7 er to dictate their own laws to those who 
seek their aid, prefer holding fast the elder traditions, to 
adopting any scheme of pharmacy which seems to promise 
less labour, and at least equal efficacy? We recommend to 
our readers the Pharmacopoeia of the Royal Hospital of St. 
Bartholomew, as an illustration in point. That institution 
has for many years profited by the services of men not only 
among the ablest in the profession, but the least likely to be 
led away by their prejudices in favour of the omnipotence of 
physic : and yet the formularies in use at that charity are 
both found to be the most advantageous to the inmates, and 
are copied and carried away into private practice by the 
students who are educated within its walls. 
There has been, of late years, a strong bias both in and 
out of the profession, in favour of separating the duties of 
the prescriber from those of the dispenser ; many have 
adopted the plan ; and there appears prima facie no valid 
reason w 7 hy it should not be generally carried into execution 
— at least, in cities and towns where druggists abound. In 
villages and country places the thing w 7 ould be impracti- 
cable; and if it ever came into common use, the village 
doctor must either undertake to maintain at his own charge 
a druggist near his residence ; or, w hat is more probable, 
consent to be divided from his brethren and to rank a little 
below them. We do not, how r ever, anticipate any such vital 
change in our constitution ; for w T e believe that the genius 
of the English people is wholly opposed to it. We have 
seen what happened in the olden time to the system of in- 
ductive philosophy which Bacon endeavoured to construct; 
how completely it fell to the ground without producing any 
practical results ; and this failure has been shown to have 
been owing to a haughty disregard, so universally prevailing 
