39° 
Pharmaceutical  Notes. 
{A.m.  Jour.  Pharm. 
August,  1894. 
the  coloration  sufficiently  great  or  regular  to  justify  the  assumption 
that  the  reaction  was  impeded  or  accelerated  by  the  presence  of 
other  salts. 
Chas.  O.  Curtman, 
Chairman  of  Research  Committee  B. 
St.  Louis,  Mo.,  May  27,  1894. 
PHARMACEUTICAL  NOTES  AND  COMMENTS. 
By  Francis  Hkmm,  Ph.G. 
Read  before  the  Missouri  Pharmaceutical  Association,  June,  1894. 
R.    Non  Repetitnr! 
Of  late  we  have  been  receiving  many  prescriptions  with  the 
above  order  either  printed  or  written  at  the  bottom  or  margin  ot 
the  prescription  blank.  That  the  physicians  are  in  earnest  in  hav- 
ing this  request,  or  rather  command,  respected  by  the  prescrip- 
tionist,  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind.  It  is  therefore  a  timely 
question  for  this  association  to  consider  and  declare  its  position 
upon  same. 
Heretofore  we  have  had  no  definite  understanding  or  regulation 
to  guide  us  in  the  matter,  and  books  of  authority  on  prescriptions 
and  dispensing,  among  them  Wall's  Prescription,  take  the  stand 
that  such  command  on  the  part  of  the  prescriber  is  both  useless 
and  presumptuous,  and  is  and  always  has  been  more  honored  in  the 
breach  than  in  the  observance  by  pharmacists,  because  if  one  refuses 
to  refill  his  patrons'  prescriptions  upon  his  request,  he  will  not 
alone  sacrifice  his  patronage,  but  will  also  fail  to  prevent  refilling, 
as  almost  every  one  of  his  competitors  would  do  so  without  com- 
punction. 
The  privilege  granted  the  patient  to  have  prescriptions  refilled 
at  pleasure  is  undoubtedly  abused,  as  we  all  know ;  for  who  of  us 
has  not  been  called  upon  by  a  patient  to  refill  his  prescription  for 
rheumatism  from  six  to  a  dozen  times  and  in  some  instances  possibly 
for  his  friends  in  the  neighborhood  who  were  similarly  afflicted? 
This  I  concede  is  an  abuse  and  works  an  injustice  to  the  pre- 
scriber. 
Again,  we  are  sometimes  asked  to  refill  prescriptions  containing 
opiates,  cocaine  or  other  narcotics  to  which  the  system  becomes 
habituated,  and  which  in  a  short  time  might  make  the  patient  a 
