THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
YOL. X.—No. I.—JULY, 1868. 
PRESCRIPTIONS. 
With the separation of prescribing from the dispensing of medicines, the ne¬ 
cessity arose for some means of conveying the instructions of the physician to 
those by whom they were to be carried into effect. It was necessary to have a 
medium of communication for indicating the remedies to be administered in the 
treatment of disease. This medium of communication—the prescription—not 
only symbolizes the existence of pharmacy as an occupation distinct and sepa¬ 
rate from the practice of medicine, but at the same time it represents an ad¬ 
vanced state of medical practice, in which all the energies of the practitioner 
are devoted to the higher departments of his profession, while the preparation 
of the prescribed remedies is left to those who make it their special business. 
The prescription, moreover, is a record of the treatment adopted, which, if ne¬ 
cessary, might be appealed to, for the satisfaction of the patient or the justifica¬ 
tion of the physician. 
It is essential that the instructions given in the prescription should be brief 
yet explicit,—that the terms used should be as little liable as possible to mis¬ 
conception, and that the preparation of the medicines ordered should not cause 
inconvenient delay in administering them. In providing for the accomplishment 
of these objects the Pharmacopoeia is designed to supply such information as 
will render the terms used in prescriptions intelligible. To a great extent this 
has been accomplished, and most prescriptions are written in such a way as to 
admit of easy interpretation by reference to the Pharmacopoeia. 
It has been principally for the purpose of facilitating and rendering less liable 
to uncertainty the prescribing of medicines by means of written prescriptions, 
that the Pharmacopoeias formerly used, and having separate and independent 
authority in different parts of the kingdom, have been superseded by the one 
national Pharmacopoeia, which now occupies their place. The Pharmacopoeia 
defines the medicines which are most frequently ordered by physicians, giving 
instructions for their preparation ; and these being made beforehand, the dis¬ 
penser is generally enabled with certainty and dispatch ^o mix and prepare for 
administration such remedies as are indicated in prescriptions. 
If all prescriptions were written with reference to one recognized standard of 
interpretation, the medicines ordered and the method of ordering them being- 
such, and such only, as the legally authorized Pharmacopoeia describes, the du¬ 
ties of dispensers would be comparatively easy. But it is obvious that it would 
neither be possible nor desirable, in the existing state of medical knowledge, 
thus to limit the discretionary power of the physician in selecting the remedies 
to be applied in the treatment of disease. The curative art being essentially 
one of progressive development, of which, without disparagement, it may be 
said that more remains to be achieved than has yet been effected in establishing 
a sound and satisfactory system of treatment, the field for investigation must 
be left open, and means afforded for the trial of new remedies, as well as for 
testing the efficacy of those hitherto principally employed. It is here that the 
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