354 “ PRESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY PREPARED,” 
ns in trying to promote the same object, can scarcely be expected to quarrel 
with a writer who is admitted to the correspondents’ column of that journal, 
to enforce the necessity of care and honesty in the preparation of ’medicines. 
We may, and indeed do., regard his sweeping eharge of general carelessness as 
unjust, but the refutation of it is one of those negatives so difficult to prove 
that we think it better let alone. We are more inclined to accept the accusa¬ 
tion as the scolding which seems necessary to some minds at the commence¬ 
ment of a lecture. A “ Pharmaceutical Chemist ” has ventured, in two letters 
published in the numbers of the ‘ Lancet ’ of December 28th and January 11th, 
to break a lance in defence of his brethren, and the long editorial notes ap¬ 
pended to them are well worthy of consideration, although we cannot think the 
editor read the “ Pharmaceutical Chemist’s” letters with much more care than 
he says the latter studied his first paper. 
We put aside the writing of prescribes as utterly irrelevant to the sub¬ 
ject ; whether a prescription be distinctly or indistinctly written, it is the dis¬ 
penser’s duty to understand it fully before compounding the medicine ordered, 
and, according to our own experience, prescribers never make any difficulty in 
giving such information as may be required. 
Descending to special charges, it is first stated, that when a prescription, in 
which pig’s pepsine of a particular maker was ordered, was left at “ one of the 
most respectable houses in London ” to be dispensed, other pepsine was substituted, 
the name of the maker first written actually erased, and that of the chemist 
by whom the mixture was prepared substituted. On the face of it there is no 
justification for such a proceeding as this, and none was attempted in the letter 
of a “ Pharmaceutical Chemist” on December 28th, although the editor in his 
note thereto seems to have attributed to his correspondent a desire to excuse 
the transaction. Such unwarrantable proceedings will never find an advocate 
in this Journal. But this is an isolated occurrence, and to bring it as evidence 
of general misconduct on the part of chemists, is about as reasonable as to flog 
a whole school when one boy belonging to it robs an orchard. 
The second charge carries with it much more weight, and seems to prove that 
want of uniformity which is so important as well for the carrying out of the 
wishes of the doctor, as for giving confidence to the patient in his chemist. It 
is, that an ointment ordered on the 16th December, 1867 (the prescription 
being headed “ Brit. Phar.”), was sent from one shop in a semi-fluid state, and 
from another a solid substance, such as the prescriber intended. Oil of Theo- 
broma cacao was the basis of the composition., and was, doubtless, used in the 
second preparation, whilst the oil of cocoa-nut was probably employed in 
the first. This should not be so, and points to the fact, that the Pharmacopoeia 
of 1867 has not been as carefully studied as it ought to be by all dispensers. We 
admit freely that the hesitation—we might use a much stronger term—of the 
profession to adopt the Pharmacopoeia of 1864, has been the cause of much 
mischief of this kind. Chemists have for the last four years been daily com¬ 
pelled to consider and decide for themselves whether “ P. L.” or “ P. B.” has 
been the text-book of many prescribers ; and although neither oil of theobroma 
nor oil of cocoa-nut had place in any Pharmacopoeia prior to 1867, it is very 
well known that for the last five-and-twenty years oil of cocoa-nut has been 
sometimes prescribed under the name of u Oleum Cacao ” erroneously, and our 
erring brother may perhaps urge “ mos pro legeL We think, however, that 
the time has now arrived at which this difficulty should cease; and, as a proof 
that as a matter of public safety it should, we refer our readers to a letter 
copied into our present Journal from the ‘ Lancet,’ headed, “The New Phar¬ 
macopoeia,” and signed “ Thomas Ballard, M.D.” The Medical Council in 1864 
issued a book which everybody seemed predisposed to abuse ; on the contrary, 
the profession generally appear delighted to honour its successor of 1867, and 
