90 
EDITORIAL. 
ject,  and  embraces  many  useful  suggestions  regarding  the  application  of 
the  tests,  especially  Heppe's  test  with  nitro  prusside  of  copper.  We  hope 
to  be  able  to  publish  this  paper  in  a  future  number. 
The  paper  on  "  Professional  Intercourse  between  the  Apothecary  and 
physician,"  by  Samuel  M.  Colcord,  discusses  a  matter  interesting  to  every 
dispensing  pharmaceutist.  The  writer  is  entirely  candid  in  the  discussion, 
and  handles  some  features  of  the  subject  without  gloves.  Its  reading  at 
the  Association  was  the  occasion  of  considerable  discussion,  which  arose 
chiefly  from  the  following  paragraph  : 
a  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  our  profession,  that  to  educate  a  competent 
dispenser,  who  can  pass  a  good  examination  at  our  schools  of  pharmacy, 
requires  more  time,  closer  application,  attentive  study  and  better  mani- 
pulation, than  it  does  to  acquire  knowledge  sufficient  to  obtain,  in  our 
medical  schools,  the  degree  of  M.  D.,  and  it  is  almost  an  invariable  rule 
that  physicians  who  abandon  the  profession  of  medicine  for  that  of  pharma- 
cy make  the  poorest  apothecaries. 13 
The  consequences  arising  from  carelessly  written  prescriptions  are  gra- 
phically portrayed,  and  the  interference  of  physicians  with  the  business  of 
apothecaries.  Mr.  Colcord  thinks  that  where  errors  occur  in  prescriptions 
the  apothecary  should  return  the  recipe  to  the  patient  with  his  reasons  for 
not  dispensing  it.  We  d»  not  agree  with  the  writer  on  this  point.  We 
believe  it  is  the  interest  of  the  apothecary  that  all  such  errors  should  be 
kept  from  the  knowledge  of  the  patient,  as  not  only  destroying  confidence 
in  the  prescriber,  but  as  reacting  against  the  apothecary  by  exciting  sus- 
picions and  doubts  in  regard  to  other  occasions. 
In  allusion  to  the  habit  of  certain  physicians  interfering  with  the  busi- 
ness of  apothecaries  by  sending  their  patients  to  other  stores,  he  justifies 
the  physician  when  he  knows  that  such  apothecaries  are  incompetent,  but 
deprecates  such  course  when  it  is  a  mere  whim. 
"  It  is  not  uncommon  or  improper  for  a  physician,  on  reasonable  grounds, 
to  recommend  a  change  of  apothecaries,  and  why  should  it  under  similar 
circumstances  be  considered  wrong  for  apothercaries  to  advise  a  change  of 
physicians'?  For  I  hold  that  apothecaries  are  as  good  judges  of  the  profes- 
sional qualifications  of  physicians,  as  physicians  are  of  apothecaries.  It 
has  often  happened  to  me,  and  I  presume  it  has  to  many  of  our  profession, 
that  friends  of  the  patient,  in  a  state  of  great  anxiety,  have  made  earnest 
appeals  to  us  for  opinions  as  to  the  qualifications  of  their  physician,  and 
under  circumstances  when  a  direct  answer  could  scarcely  be  avoided  j  and 
I  hold  that  in  such  cases,  when  sure  that  our  opinions  are  correctly 
formed,  we  are  bound  to  give  them  to  our  customers,  whether  adverse  or 
favorable  to  the  physician  ;  for  in  the  one  case  greater  confidence  is  placed 
in  the  treatment,  which  is  always  beneficial  to  the  patient ;  and  in  the 
other,  who  of  us  have  not  known  of  rapid  recovery  occasioned  by  a  change 
of  medical  adviser  and  treatment  ? 
"  We  are  not  to  suppose,  because  our  intercourse  with  physicians  pre- 
sents so  many  objectionable  features  to  us,  that  they  have  nothing  to 
complain  of  in  the  management  of  our  affairs,  relating  intimately  or  re- 
motely to  our  intercourse  with  them.    The  statistics  of  ©ur  profession 
