NOTES ON PEESCEIBING. 
BY DANIEL IIANBURY. 
Although more than fifty years have elapsed since the learned Dr. Paris 
placed before the medical profession his observations on the theory and art of 
medicinal combination, it may safely be asserted that nothing has been since 
written on the same subject more replete with sound and accurate information. 
Yet every year adds to our experience: not only are new drugs introduced, 
but new combinations and new forms of administration are also adopted; and 
the prescriptions of the present day differ as much in character from those that 
found their way to the druggist’s counter half a century ago, as do the medicines 
then in vogue from those which are now in use. 
The art of prescribing, it must be admitted, is not a subject corning precisely 
within the province of the pharmaceutist, yet the pharmaceutist is necessarily 
acquainted with the methods of prescribing which are prevalent and is more 
capable than any other persbn of judging of the merits of formulae under phar¬ 
maceutical and chemical aspects. 
It has long appeared to me that some of these methods or modern phases of 
prescribing call for notice in the pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal^ and in 
the hope that the subject may be further handled, I have thrown together the 
observations here presented. Some of the formulae that I shall quote will afford 
evidence that the precepts of the author of the Pharmacologia and the rules of 
chemistry are too little observed, and that the duties of the private dispensary 
performed by many of the older physicians while practising as apothecaries, 
enabled them to avoid the errors and eccentricities into which some of their suc¬ 
cessors occasionally fall. The result of mixing the ingredients ordered in a pre¬ 
scription is sometimes very unexpected, so that even the most practised dis¬ 
penser is often unable to predict whether certain given ingredients can be united 
into a compound that shall be suitable for administration :—and if the pharma¬ 
ceutist whose time and skill are chiefly devoted to the mixing of drugs is thus 
at fault, it is hardly surprising that the physician whose mind is mainly directed 
to other subjects, should sometimes prescribe ingredients that it is impossible to 
combine, or that if combined, cannot be taken, or are devoid of the required 
efficacy. 
For convenience I shall place my remarks under different heads and shall 
notice firstly 
UncJtemical Formulse. 
As an example let us take the following: 
P) Barii chloridi gr. iss 
Ferri sulphatis gr. ij 
Extracti gentianm q. s. 
Ut fiat pilula. 
The writer of this formula} was a frequent i:rescriber of chloride of barium 
which he generally ordered in combination with sulphate of quinine or sulphate 
of iron, or with both, thereby probably rendering the chloride inert. No reli¬ 
ance could of course be placed on the uniform effects of baryta, prescribed some¬ 
times in a state of activity and sometimes in an inert form. 
As another example of this character, take the following prescription which 
was brought to be dispensed a few weeks ago : 
potassii iodidi 3i 
Fotassae bicarbonatis 5iss 
Ferri et quinae citratis 9iv 
Tinct. Valerianae ammoniatse 5 j 
Aqua} ad ^iv 
!Misce. Sumat cochleare medium ex aqua ter die. 
