84 
EDITORIAL. 
mittee  to  carry  out  its  views  in  regard  to  State  laws  bearing  on  phar- 
macy, and  we  may  look  forward  to  the  report  of  this  Committee,  in 
September  next,  with  hopeful  interest. 
Death  from  Atropia  through  the  ignorance  of  an  Apothecary, 
AND  the  bad  writing  OF  A  Physician. — Ou  Friday,  the  6th  of  Novem- 
ber, the  coroner's  jury,  in  Philadelphia,  rendered  the  following  verdict  : 
"  From  the  evidence  elicited  before  us,  we  find  that  Mrs.  Sophia  Hecht 
sent  to  the  drug  store  of  Henry  A.  Bower,  north-east  corner  of  Sixth 
and  Green  streets,  on  Tuesday  morning,  November  3d,  1868,  to  have  a 
prescription  calling  for  four  cathartic  pills,  which  had  been  renewed 
several  times  before.  These  pills  were  taken  by  the  deceased.  Soon 
after  severe  and  alarming  symptoms  came  on.  Physicians  were  called, 
when  it  was  discovered  that  Joseph  H.  Bower  had,  by  a  mistake  while 
compounding  the  prescription,  substituted  atropia,  a  deadly  poison,  for 
assafoetida. 
"  We,  therefore,  find  that  the  said  Sophia  Hecht  came  to  her  death 
from  a  narcotic  poison  known  as  atropia.  We  also  severely  censure 
Henry  A.  Bower  for  allowing  an  incompetent  person  to  compound  pre- 
scriptions at  his  store,  and  deprecate  the  practice  of  renewing  prescrip- 
tions from  the  file." 
The  facts  of  the  case  briefly  are  these  :  Dr.  Phillip  De  Young  pre- 
scribed an  anti-billious  dose  of  four  pills,  containing  two  grains  of  assa- 
foetida.  It  was  renewed  several  times  correctly,  when  it  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Joseph  H.  Bower  to  dispense  it  again.  The  word  assafoetida,  not  plainly 
written,  was  abbreviated,  and  by  some  unaccountable  impulse  was  read 
•  afropia,  and  the  dose  of  four  pills,  containing  two  grains  of  that  alkaloid, 
dispensed  apparently  without  a  thought  as  to  its  poisonous  nature  and 
excessive  amount.  According  to  the  evidence  of  Dr.  H.  C.  Paist,  the 
only  reason  offered  by  the  young  man  was  that  the  price  marked  on  the 
prescription  was  such  as  would  be  asked  for  such  a  quantity  of  atropia  ! 
and  he  appears  to  have  ignored  altogether  the  train  of  reasoning  which 
every  competent  dispenser  would  have  instituted,  before  he  dispensed  so 
potent  a  substance  for  internal  use  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  ordered. 
♦No  good  or  sufficient  excuse  can  be  offered  in  this  case  ;  for  we  take  the 
ground  that,  if  the  physician  had  ordered  atropia,  a  competent  pharma- 
ceutist would  not  have  dispensed  it.  His  own  sense  of  responsibility 
would  have  prevented  it.  The  actor  in  this  case,  by  his  own  admission, 
seems  wholly  incompetent  to  dispense  prescriptions,  and  a  great  respon- 
sibility rests  with  his  employer,  if  it  be  true  that  he  delegated  his  business, 
during  absence  from  the  city  to  such  a  substitute.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  believe  the  mistake  would  not  have  happened  if  the  prescription  had 
been  properly  written  ;  and  the  event  is  a  warning  to  many  physicians  to 
use  more  care  in  this  part  of  their  daily  duty,  that  they  may  avoid  the 
responsibility  of  causing  these  sad  accidents.  The  deprecation  of  the 
jury  regarding  the  renewal  of  prescriptions  is  uncalled  for,  has  no  bearing 
on  the  case,  and  would  have  been  better  if  applied  to  the  practice  of  ab- 
breviating important  words  in  these  responsible  documents. 
