Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
Oct.  1,  1874.  J 
Prescriptions. 
471 
might  injure  the  patient;  in  this,  the  danger  is  that  it  may  benefit 
him,  without  bringing  any  pay  to  the  physician.  Poor  doctor  !  so- 
long  as  he  does  not  get  his  fee,  he  is  equally  dissatisfied,  whether  the 
patient  grows  better  or  worse  !  Well,  it  is  hard,  if  a  man  has  got 
hold  of  an  efficient  formula  for  a  certain  class  of  cases,  to  have  Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry  steal  his  thunder,  and  cure  just  as  many  and  just  as 
well  as  he  can  himself,  and  perhaps  make  a  great  flourish  about  it, 
too.  But  our  pity  for  him  will  be  lessened  if  we  remember  that  he 
himself  owes  almost  all  of  his  prescriptions  to  others  ;  and  it  will  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum  by  the  reflection  that  it  is  only  by  the  free 
contribution  of  many  workers  that  medical  science  (or  any  other)  can 
ever  be  built  up.  The  only  way  a  man  can  keep  others  from  knowing 
what  he  does,  is  to  keep  it  a  secret,  which,  if  generally  carried  out, 
would  throw  us  back  into  the  dark  ages..  At  the  same  time  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that,  if  any  one  wishes  to  monopolize  any  item  of 
knowledge,  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  do  so,  and  no  one  can  justly  com- 
plain of  such  a  course,  though  no  one  can  admire  it. 
Briefly  to  recapitulate  : 
(1)  .  A  prescription  is  a  confidential  letter  from  a  physician  to  a 
pharmacist,  the  latter  having  the  right  of  custody,  but  not  the  right 
to  make  it  public.  The  patient,  being  an  interested  party,  has  a 
right  to  a  copy. 
(2)  .  The  druggist's  business  is  to  furnish  whatever  medicines  the 
customer  wants,  whether  prescribed  Iby  a  doctor  or  not,  the  patient 
taking  his  own  risk. 
(3)  .  The  physician,  like  any  other  scientific  man,  should  be  liberal 
in  communicating  what  he  originates,  because  most  of  his  own  know- 
ledge is  derived  from  others,  and  in  this  way  only  can  science  be 
advanced.  But  this  obligation  is  ethical,  not  legal,  something  to  be 
desired  and  recommended,  not  enforced. 
I  hope  no  part  of  the  ^bove  will  be  understood  to  countenance  the 
practice  of  "prescribing  across  the  counter,"  or  of  prescribing  by 
any  other  unqualified  party.  This  is  a  nuisance  in  the  drug  business, 
and  one  that  every  intelligent  and  fair  minded  pharmacist  will  en- 
deavor to  abate.  But  the  doctors  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  really  the 
sufferers,  nor  (according  to  my  observation)  are  the  druggists  usually 
the  sinners.  Both  the  fault  and  the  suffering  belong  to  the  ignorant 
public,  who  insist  upon  the  druggist  "  fixing  them  up  something  for  a 
cough,"  so  that  they  may  evade  the  payment  of  the  doctor's  fee. 
This  subject  is  a  painful  and  suggestive  one,  too  extensive  to  be  fol- 
lowed out  here. 
