472 
EDITORIAL. 
one  of  these  which  had  most  interested  and  agitated  the  public  and 
pained  the  medical  mind,  was  a  recent  occurrence  at  an  apothecary's 
store.  Things  of  this  kind  have  seldom  reached  my  ears  for  a  long  time 
past,  without  being  used  as  the  occasion  to  make  furious  attempts  to 
throw  the  blame  upon  physicians.  In  this  instance  it  gave  rise  to  an 
earnest  and  persevering  one,  from  which  I  had  to  dissuade  a  valued  friend 
of  my  own,  to  induce  the  Legislature  to  prohibit  the  use  of  the  Latin 
language  in  prescriptions.  He  who  runs  may  read  that  there  was  here 
understood  and  favored  a  belief  in  the  minds  of  the  public  that  physi- 
cians were  to  blame  in  the  matter,  and  that  a  pompous  false  pretension, 
conducted  by  the  use  of  Latin,  was  what  had  produced  that  and  similar 
occurrences.  I  need  not  ask,  certainly,  how  this  could  be  with  truth 
omitted  in  treating  of  the  medical  events  of  the  year. 
As  Mr.  Procter  says,  "it  would  not.  perhaps,  be  difficult"  to  take  up 
other  illustrations  ;  but,  not  feeling  inclined  to  exhibit  myself  as  an  ad- 
versary of  the  apothecaries  of  the  city,  I  will  confine  this  branch  of  the 
discussion  to  the  examples  which  he  has  given  me  himself.  In  these 
same  reviews,  there  occur  a  long  string  of  insinuations  against  physi- 
cians. These  are  exactly  cases  in  point.  If  the  humble  individual  who 
now  addresses  you  be  ever  so  much  in  the  wrong,  does  that  give  the 
reviewer  any  right  to  retaliate  upon  other  and  unoffending  men  belong- 
ing to  the  same  profession  ?  In  defending  apothecaries,  he  takes  occasion 
to  instruct  the  public  upon  the  ignorance,  carelessness  and  negligence  of 
physicians  ;  and  plainly  intimates  the  position,  somewhat  incompatible 
with  his  present  alleged  exposure,  that  the  apothecary  is  bound  to  ex- 
ercise a  paternal  superintendence  over  our  prescriptions,  in  order  to 
protect  not  only  our  patients,  but  our  own  characters.  The  reviewer's 
opinions  on  this  point  ought  certainly  to  be  well  digested,  as  he  has 
chewed  the  cud  on  them  to  much  extent  in  his  criticism.  The  idea,  how- 
ever, of  violation  of  confidence,  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him. 
Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  know  who  those  are  who 
"hold  that  the  prescription  is  always  a  sufficient  warrant  '  to  blindly 
dispense' it  according  to  the  letter."  It  is  a  part  of  my  demand  that 
they  should  be  more  carefully  examined  than  they  are.  Besides  being 
made  the  occasion  of  improprieties  by  some  apothecaries,  they  undoubt- 
edly often  contain  errors  themselves.  I  will  not  hold  myself  responsible 
for  omission  of  duty,  on  the  part  of  boards  of  examiners,  who  may  have 
granted  diplomas  without  requiring  adequate  preparation  ;  I  will  not  in- 
quire whether  this  has  never  occurred  within  the  more  limited  circle  of 
the  College  of  Pharmacy.  Prescriptions  are  almost  always  written  under 
agitation  and  interruption  in  families.  I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  a 
common-sense,  scientific  and  citizen-like  way  of  acting  on  this  subject; 
and  that  it  is  a  thing  of  strong  moral  obligation.  I  only  object  to  airs 
of  superiority,  to  going  out  of  our  own  departments  of  duty,  and  to  that 
vanity  so  often  mistaken  for  the  loftier  sin  of  ambition,  and  which  so 
generally  leads  to  "  vexation  of  spirit."  The  wisdom  of  antiquity  is  not 
of  the  less  value  because  it  is  included  in  the  canon  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures. 
It  ought  to  be  recollected  that  where  a  course  of  study  is  so  extensive 
and  diversified  as  that  of  medicine  ought  to  be,  where  the  members  of 
another  profession  contract  to  take  the  chemical  and  pharmaceutical 
part  of  it  off  their  hands  ;  when  chemistry  itself  has  become  inexhausti- 
ble by  any  single  human  brain,  and  where  the  principal  and  prolonged 
labor  ought  to  be  expended  upon  the  human  body  and  its  changes,  and 
there  is  no  leisure  to  spare  for  unorganized  matter,  it  is  not  our  duty  to 
be  so  well  acquainted  with  chemistry  and  the  other  pharmaceutical  ad- 
