“prescriptions carefully prepared.” 355 
this makes it easy for dispensers, who are by law bound to the latest authority, 
to obey its instructions in all cases where a contrary course is not indicated by 
the prescriber. This should not only be a common understanding, but it should 
be commonly talked of,—made a matter of notoriety. There can be no diffi¬ 
culty in keeping P. L. preparations for old prescriptions, or new ones in which 
they may be ordered, but nothing can be more detrimental to the interest of 
our body, nothing can more seriously compromise us in the eyes of our customers, 
than a difference in the appearance or flavour of a mixture ; therefore, the more 
decidedly we bring our practice into unison the better. 
But it is not simply a strict adherence to the Pharmacopoeia which will 
ensure that uniformity in medicines so much to be desired. There are in phar¬ 
macy, as in every other profession aspiring to the rank of a science, un¬ 
written (and ever-increasing) as well as written laws. The knowledge of 
the latter can only become general by the free interchange of opinion and 
experience on matters connected with our business, which the Pharmaceutical 
Society has, from its commencement, laboured to promote, and which the 
Pharmaceutical Conference has in later years more actively prosecuted. Look 
through the questions proposed for discussion at Nottingham and Dundee, and 
you will find subjects started calculated to bring the results of the investiga¬ 
tions of the most active within reach of all,—investigations, some on ab¬ 
struse, but many more on practical every-day matters. We have ample proof 
there that the most accomplished pharmaceutists of the day are ready, in a true 
professional spirit, to place the fruit of their study and observation, not simply 
before their customers in such a way as to secure for themselves all the pecu¬ 
niary advantage, but freely and openly before their brethren and competitors in 
the trade. 
A very strenuous remonstrance is made by the ‘ Lancet. ’ against such labels 
as “ The Drops as before .” It is urged, and with much truth, that in these 
days, when medicines are ordered in a concentrated form, it is unsafe to trust 
to the recollection of a nurse ; that in some cases a new attendant may have 
to administer the dose; consequently, the full direction should always be 
given on the label when a medicine is repeated. In the main this is quite cor¬ 
rect, and we should be glad to see it made a constant rule in dispensaries 
to repeat the original direction, when applicable, at the time of the repeti¬ 
tion of the mixture, and when circumstances render a modification neces¬ 
sary, still to state the dose in such a form as will prevent any possibility of 
error. It is on such modifications as we here indicate that our contemporary 
seems to cast aside his usual liberality when he says, “ It is this pernicious 
practice of the dispenser using his discretion , instead of doing as he is told, that 
is so reprehensible.” He evidently forgets that these modifications to suit the 
occasion are absolutely necessary, and that a dispenser must use his discretion. 
He is wrong, too, in saying that the shortcomings to which he draws attention 
“are not so much a question of education as of care in keeping the best drugs 
and chemicals, as well as of great pains to prevent the possibility of any acci¬ 
dent to the sick.” It is clear that he would have dispensers mere handicrafts¬ 
men. We hold that much more is necessary, and we trust ere long to see that 
greater necessity enforced by Act of Parliament, before any man is allowed to 
take on himself the responsible office of a dispenser of medicines. 
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