THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
YOL. X.—No. IV.—OCTOBER, 1863. 
PRESCRIBERS AND DISPENSERS, THEIR DUTIES AND 
MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP. 
The due discharge of the duties appertaining fco the administration of 
medicine involves a frequent consideration of the mutual relationship ex¬ 
isting between those engaged in the practice of its several departments. The 
institution of medicine has for its object the relief of those who suffer from 
bodily ailments, and the interests of these must be considered paramount to 
all others in the arrangement of duties to be performed. 
The patient calls to his aid the administrators of a noble profession, the 
“ divine art” of healing the sick; his life is placed in their hands with a 
confidence that the best available knowledge and judgment and care and 
attention, consistent with the reward he is able to give in return, will be ex¬ 
ercised in his behalf. His knowledge does not enable him to judge of the 
means used, excepting through the character and reputation of those he em¬ 
ploys to apply them. It is a case in which the fullest confidence is reposed, 
and sacred duties are implied. 
The members of the medical profession are deservedly held in high esteem ; 
they are admitted to the homes, and necessarily become acquainted with 
many of the internal arrangements of the families of all classes. Nor is 
there any want of a due sense of the great responsibility implied in this po¬ 
sition. Talent and learning and patient research and laborious application, 
are devoted to the cultivation of the science of medicine, a science the prin¬ 
ciples of which are involved in much obscurity and require for their develop¬ 
ment some of the acutest powers of the human mind. 
The physician prescribes and the pharmacist prepares and dispenses the 
remedies intended for the relief of suffering, or the removal of some cause of 
impediment to the due performance of the natural functions of the body. 
Every facility should be offered for rendering the means provided for ac¬ 
complishing the intended purpose as effectual as possible. Just as a good 
understanding and great confidence should exist, and do exist, between pa¬ 
tient and physician, so should there be a similar relationship between the 
prescriber and the dispenser of medicines. 
The first condition essential to the establishment and maintenance of the 
relationship required is that neither party should trench upon the ground 
rightly occupied by the other,—that there should be no clashing of interests, 
no cause for mutual mistrust or jealousy. The more completely the func¬ 
tions of the two departments of prescribing and dispensing are separated, 
the more will the relationship existing between those engaged in performing 
them be likely to conduce to the advancement of medical science £nd the 
best interests of humanity. 
YOL. X. 
O 
