AnM"L?ch  iP9hi7rm')    Advances  in  Materia  Medica  and  Pharmacy.  123 
this  country  the  question  "  To  whom  does  the  prescription  belong?" 
has  been  a  matter  of  debate  since  time  immemorial.  Anything  that 
will  in  any  manner  bear  on  the  subject  and  help  to  clear  it  up  must 
be  pertinent :  "  A  woman  consulted  a  physician  who  gave  her  a 
prescription  which  she  took  to  a  firm  of  pharmacists  to  be  dispensed. 
The  prescription  was  not  returned  to  her,  and  when  her  husband 
asked  that  it  should  be,  this  was  refused,  the  pharmacists  stating 
that  they  had  undertaken  at  the  request  of  the  physician  not  to 
return  his  prescriptions  to  patients  unless  they  were  expressly  author- 
ized by  him  to  do  so.  An  action  was  brought  by  the  husband  against 
the  pharmacists  for  the  return  of  the  prescription.  In  giving  evi- 
dence, the  physician  stated  that  the  course  adopted  by  him  with 
regard  to  prescriptions  was  taken  for  the  protection  of  the  public. 
He  illustrated  the  danger  of  allowing  prescriptions  to  be  retained 
by  the  patient  by  saying  that  not  infrequently  a  medicine  ordered 
for  an  adult  was  given,  without  any  physician  being  consulted,  to 
an  infant.  He  had  requested  pharmacists  to  inform  him  whenever 
a  patient  asked  for  the  return  of  a  prescription,  and  he  made  a  prac- 
tice of  writing  on  prescriptions  which  might  properly  be  handed 
back  without  question  the  words  "  return  to  patient."  The  lawyer 
pointed  out  that  the  prescription  was  of  no  value  to  them,  and  that 
they  were  only  contesting  the  case  on  the  question  of  principle  and 
in  order  to  keep  faith  with  the  medical  profession.  The  judge  held 
that  no  property  in  the  document  had  passed  to  the  plaintiff,  as  the 
prescription  had  been  handed  to  the  patient  only  in  order  that  it 
might  be  conveyed  by  her  to  the  pharmacists  to  be  made  up  instead 
of  the  medical  man  himself  sending  it.  The  claim,  therefore,  was 
dismissed  with  costs."    (Jour.  A.  M.  A.,  Nov.  25,  1916.) 
The  Effect  of  Various  Salts  and  Alkalis  on  Pepsin. — Ham- 
burger and  Halphen  make  some  interesting  comments  in  reference 
to  their  experiments  with  pepsin  and  the  action  of  salts  and  alkalis 
on  the  same.  Pepsin,  they  state,  is  completely  inactive  when  treated 
with  salts.  Yet  they  found  that  sodium  chloride  in  the  strength  of 
a  1  to  1,000  solution  markedly  increases  the  activity  of  this  ferment, 
although  in  a  concentration  of  1  to  400  solution  it  seems  to  have  no 
effect  whatever,  and  a  1  to  40  strength  solution  renders  the  ferment 
completely  inactive.  They  also  found  that  other  salts  of  a  neutral 
character  gave  similar  results.  And,  as  was  to  be  expected,  alkalis 
they  found  were  much  more  inhibitive.  Perhaps  the  most  interest- 
ing of  their  observations  is  that  free  hydrochloric  acid,  in  the  propor- 
