28 
REPORT RELATIVE TO PHYSICIANS' PRESCRIPTIONS. 
also becoming more alive to the merits of our national Codex, and 
they are respectfully urged to familiarize themselves with its no- 
menclature, and to adhere to it strictly in their prescriptions. 
3. The numerous treatises on Materia Medica, Pharmacy and 
the Practice of Medicine, of English origin, that are reprinted in 
this country, notwithstanding, they are generally interlarded with 
the formulas of our own Pharmacopoeia, tend, nevertheless, very 
much to confuse the physician and apothecary, in the use and exact 
meaning of terms in prescriptions. To obviate the difficulties thus 
occasioned, the physician should, when he prescribes a medicine, 
which is not officinal, nor in common use, state on his prescription, 
either in a note at the bottom, or within parenthesis, following the 
article, the authority or wort from whence it is derived, as "Grif- 
fith's formulary" — " Ellis' Formulary" — " Braithwait's Retro- 
spect," etc. 
4. Physicians would lessen the risk of errors in their prescrip- 
tions, and increase the chances of their detection should they be 
made, by observing the following hints. 
1st. Write the name of the patient at the top of the prescription, 
unless a good reason prevents this being done ; in which case, it 
should be expressed as for Mr. G — , Mrs. R. — , or Mrs. S.'s child, 
or for Master T — , so as to convey to the apothecary some idea of 
the age of the patient. 
2d. The date and name of the physician or his initials, should 
always be appended, and, whenever practical, the dose and mode of 
administering the medicine directed. 
3d. When an unusually large dose of an active medicine is pre- 
scribed, as opium, morphia, elaterium, strychnia, etc., let such 
names be put in italics, and the quantity or quantities repeated in 
writing enclosed within a parenthesis; thus: — f& Morphiae Sul- 
phatis grs. vj. (six grains.) Biv. in chart, vj. 
4th. When an active substance is to be used externally, it should 
be so stated on the prescription ; thus, "For external application" 
— " To be applied to the part as directed," etc. 
5th. The quantities of each article should be placed in a line 
with the name, and not below it and in using the Roman numerals, 
th? i's should be dotted correctly. 
6th. The occasional practice of writing the directions intended 
for the patient in latin, and especially in abbreviated latin, is un- 
