52 
MEANS FOR PREVENTING ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
them. Questions may also arise as to the best methods of adjusting the doses 
of medicines, whether the teaspoon, tablespoon, and wineglass, are proper mea¬ 
sures to use in such cases, or whether the graduated glass and bottle, as more 
accurate means of measuring liquids, ought not to be adopted. The necessity 
for the consideration of questions such as these becomes more pressing in pro¬ 
portion as an increased number of very active substances, which in a concen¬ 
trated state are powerful poisons, are added to the Materia Medico, in daily use. 
The stock of a druggist’s shop of fifty years ago would bear no comparison with 
that of a modern pharmaceutical establishment, in regard to the powerful and 
dangerous nature of the medicines contained in it. Greater responsibility rests 
npon the dispenser of medicines now than formerly, and much more stringent 
regulations are rendered necessary by the altered circumstances of the case. 
Many of these regulations relate so exclusively to the internal arrangements of 
the shop or dispensary, that those only who have practical experience in dis¬ 
pensing can fully judge of the extent to which they are likely to realize the 
required object. Details of this description will therefore be most successfully 
devised and carried out by those who have the strongest and most direct interest 
in their operation. But there are other cases in which it is desirable that phar¬ 
maceutists should confer and act in concert with medical practitioners. 
Much may be done to lessen the dangers attending the administration of 
medicines by judiciously adjusting the composition and strength of preparations 
which are required to be kept by the pharmaceutist, and are commonly pre¬ 
scribed by the physician. Complicated combinations should, as far as possible, 
be avoided, especially such as contain dangerous ingredients. There are, unfor¬ 
tunately, a large number of medicines frequently prescribed, for the preparation 
of which there are no authorized formulae, but which are made according to 
processes adopted by one or more pharmaceutists, who indicate only to those 
who purchase or prescribe them, the proportions of some of the most active of 
their constituents. Sometimes even this information is not accorded, and pre¬ 
parations containing strychnia or other poisonous substance are dispensed with¬ 
out a knowledge, by those who order or sell them, of what their real composition 
and properties are. This is one of the evils of the existing state of the practice 
of medicine which loudly calls for some interference. Of secret and indefinite 
compounds containing strychnia, many of which are prescribed by medical men, 
it may be said the name is “ legion.” A diminution in the number of these 
Avould be a most desirable result to attain, but it could only be realized by the 
united efforts of medical and pharmaceutical associations. The existing evil 
would perhaps be most effectually mitigated by a resolution on the part of the 
medical profession to discountenance the use of secret or proprietary medicines, 
and in every possible way to encourage the publication of formulae for the pre¬ 
paration of remedies which may have resulted from the application of the com¬ 
bined knowledge and experience of the physician and the chemist. 
But not only is it desirable to discourage the use of secret remedies and 
to counteract the tendency to undue complications, much may also be done to 
lessen the dangers attending the administration of medicines, by reducing the 
strength both of officinal preparations and also, and especially, of medicines in 
the form in which they are prescribed for use. The example set by the highest 
medical authority has been in this direction, nearly all the alterations which have 
been made in the medicines ordered in the Pharmacopoeia having effected reduc¬ 
tion rather than increase of strength. In this way dangerous medicines maybe 
rendered comparatively harmless, while, on the other hand, by the process of 
concentration safe and harmless remedies may be converted into destructive 
agents, capable, if a slight error should be committed in their administration, 
of injuring health or destroying life. 
A case of accidental poisoning with strychnia which has recently occurred, 
