42 
Editorial. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Phaem. 
\     Jan.  1, 1874. 
of  sickness ;  and  this  liberty  of  selecting  the  curative  agents  is  not  only  con- 
fined to  those  articles  which  are  contained  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United 
States,  but  extends  to  any  article  which  he  may  suppose  to  meet  any  special 
indication.  Pharmacopoeias  define  the  quality  of  those  medicinal  agents — 
whether  simple  or  compound — which  are  employed  to  a  certain  extent;  but 
they  are  not  intended  to  make  a  selection  of  such  which  ought  to  be  used  or 
rejected  by  the  physician.  Hence  all  pharmacopoeias  contain  a  larger  number 
of  drugs  and  preparations,  possessing  astringent,  tonic,  aperient,  cathartic, 
sedative,  &c,  properties,  which  are  actually  prescribed  by  some  physicians. 
The  number  of  drugs  and  of  chemicals  actually  used  by  each  physician  is,  in 
the  large  majority  of  cases,  very  small,  and,  as  far  as  the  individual  is  con- 
cerned, perhaps  nine-tenths  or  even  more  of  all  the  articles  might  be  stricken 
from  his  Pharmacopoeia.  But  that  even  the  Pharmacopoeia,  comprehensive  as 
it  necessarily  must  be,  does  not  define  the  limits  beyond  which  a  medical  prac- 
titioner does  not  go,  is  well  known  to  all  pharmacists  actively  engaged  in  busi- 
ness, and  that  such  limits  cannot  be  drawn  is  evident,  unless  it  were  possible 
to  fix  the  boundary  lines  of  human  research  and  progress. 
The  unlimited  liberty  of  selection  naturally  includes  the  same  unlimited  lib- 
erty of  combination  of  remedies;  hence,  in  our  opinion,  no  patent,  of  what- 
ever kind,  can  interfere  with  the  cure  of  disease,  by  preventing  a  physician 
from  prescribing  certain  remedies  in  any  desirable  proportion,  combination  or 
form,  .And  if  the  prescribing  of  remedies  used  in  patented  medicines  cannot 
be  prevented,  surely  the  compounding  of  such  prescriptions  by  the  pharmacist 
cannot  interfere  with  the  real  or  pretended  rights  of  anybody,  and  the  phar- 
macist is  not  only  at  liberty,  but  we  would  consider  him  morally  bound,  to  dis- 
pense each  special  prescription,  and  not  to  entrust  the  dispensing  of  it  to  some 
other  party  in  a  distant  locality. 
Some  five  or  six  years  ago  a  New  York  firm  procured  a  patent  upon  the 
combination  of  salts  of  bismuth  with  pepsin,  and  we  believe  intended  at  one 
time  to  enforce  their  supposed  monopoly;  but  we  have  yet  to  learn  of  the  first 
physician  who,  by  this  patent,  had  been  deterred  from  prescribing  the  two  ar- 
ticles together,  or  of  the  apothecary  who,  from  fear  of  infringing  upon  that  pat- 
ent right,  had  refused  to  dispense  such  a  prescription. 
During  the  last  year  or  two,  reference  has  been  repeatedly  made  in  this  jour- 
nal to  a  combination  of  cod-liver  oil,  phosphate  of  calcium,  lactic  acid,  &c,  for 
which  a  patent  has  been  obtained  by  a  party  of  this  city.  We  know  that  such 
combinations  are  at  the  present  time  prescribed  in  various  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, and  we  believe  also  in  Europe,  by  formulas  published  in  this  journal,  and 
elsewhere;  but  we  do  not  believe  that  a  single  physician  or  pharmacist  has  been 
prevented  from  prescribing  or  dispensing  these  articles,  officinal  in  the  U.  S. 
and  other  pharmacopoeias,  although  they  happen  to  be  the  same  articles  for 
the  combination  of  which  the  Patent  Office  has  seen  fit  to  issue  letters  patent. 
While  we  contend  for  the  unrestricted  liberty  of  the  pharmacist  to  dispense 
any  article  of  animal,  vegetable  or  mineral  origin,  which  a  physician  may  hap- 
pen to  prescribe,  we  desire  to  be  uuderstood  as  not  expressing  any  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  legality  of  offering  preparations  for  sale  which  may  be  put  up  in 
imitation  of  such  for  which  letters  patent  have  been  obtained.    We  regard  all 
