678 
Tablet  Medication. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  December,  1896. 
through  the  inlet  tube,  the  exit  may  be  attached  to  a  Sprengel 
pump  and  the  air  sucked  through.  To  prevent  the  waste  of  ether 
as  far  as  possible,  it  is  preferable  to  attach  the  exit  tube  to  a  con- 
denser through  which  water  is  running,  and  to  wash  the  air  sucked 
through  by  means  of  cold  water  in  a  wash-bottle ;  this  water  will, 
on  subsequent  warming,  yield  a  small  quantity  of  ether,  but  the 
larger  proportion  is  kept  back  by  the  condenser. 
I  have  had  several  of  these  freezing-bottles  in  use  during  the  past 
summer,  and  found  no  difficulty  in  maintaining  a  temperature  of 
—  40  to  — 5°  C.  for  a  long  period,  even  during  the  hottest  weather, 
and  if  the  test-tubes  were  filled  with  water,  it  was  converted  into 
ice  in  a  few  minutes,  with  the  expenditure  of  very  little  ether. 
0 
TABLET  MEDICATION.1 
(For  remarks  concerning  this  article,  see  page  688.) 
The  "  tablet  fad,"  as  some  of  our  pharmaceutic  friends  choose  to 
call  it,  appears  to  have  come  to  stay.  The  convenience,  cleanliness 
and  presumably  accurate  dosage  of  the  preparations  recommend 
them  readily  to  the  practitioner,  and  at  the  present  time  there  is  hardly 
a  doctor's  office  where  the  familiar  glass-stoppered  bottles  and  labels 
of  the  different  manufacturers  are  not  to  be  encountered.  They 
have  undoubtedly  affected  the  druggist's  business  to  some  extent, 
and  have  perhaps  also  modified  medical  practice — how  materially  is 
a  question  to  be  settled  in  the  future.  That  they  are  the  unmiti- 
gated evil  that  some  pharmaceutic  writers  hold,  is  doubtful ;  but 
that  their  extensive  adoption  as  a  mode  of  drug-dispensing  by 
physicians  has  in  it  possibilities  to  be  deprecated,  is  pretty  nearly 
certain.  In  their  present  development,  it  may  easily  happen  that 
with  some  they  may  induce  an  indolent  or  careless  therapeutic 
method,  that  ready-made  shot-gun  prescriptions  may  become  popu- 
lar -and  an  actual  evil.  It  is  easy  also  to  see  how,  without  any 
standard  authority  regulating  these  preparations,  there  may  be 
some  among  them  that  are  not  only  useless,  but  absolutely  danger- 
ous combinations  introduced  to  manufacturers,  and  sent  out  among 
the  profession.  It  may  be  there  are  none  as  yet  of  this  kind  that 
are  really  of  any  importance,  but  we  have  to  reckon  with  their 
From  The  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  October  31,  1896. 
