I90  Teaching  of  Therapeutics.  j"^'"-  {JaJch^V/iS 
with  all  sorts  of  drugs,  and  contradictions,  with  widely  varying  doses 
of  the  ingredients;  but  there  is  a  standard  dose  of  the  whole  mess 
whether  it  be  for  a  young  girl  of  i6  weighing  loo  pounds  or  an  old 
rounder  weighing  200  pounds.  Not  only  this,  but  these  mixtures 
go  by  names  which  often  do  not  mention  the  most  active  ingredient, 
or,  worse  still,  go  by  numbers,  so  that  the  order  on  the  treatment 
card  reads:    "No.  23,  dessert-spoonful  t.  i.  d." 
The  fault  does  not  stop  with  internship.  Never  having  been 
taught  practical  therapeutics,  the  man  steps  into  practice  a  fair  mark 
for  the  loquacious  traveling  salesman  who  places  him  in  the  vocative  by 
being  familiar  with  what  he  ought  to  know.  Some  years  ago,  tell- 
ing a  distinguished  ex-president  of  the  Association  that  a  patient 
was  getting  acetphenetidin,  I  found  he  did  not  know  it  was  phen- 
acetin.  When  he  was  told  that  the  first  term  was  the  official  one, 
he  laughed  and  admitted  that  he  had  asked  a  student  what  he  would 
use  in  a  given  case,  and  the  reply  was  "phenol."  The  clinician 
"long"  on  pathology  but  "short"  on  therapeutics  then  informed  the 
astonished  youth  that  "phenol  was  no  doubt  very  good,  but  carbolic 
acid  was  better." 
Proper  Method  of  Training  the  Student.— Tht  remedy  for  the  state 
of  affairs  just  described  is  in  teaching  and  experience  when  a  stu- 
dent. This,  in  my  experience,  which  is  a  fairly  large  one,  is  best 
accomplished  by  having  the  student,  in  his  course,  not  only  taught 
doses  by  rule  of  thumb,  but  also  given  the  opportunity  to  prescribe 
for  suppositive  or  actual  cases,  and  to  see  the  results  of  his  order, 
both  as  to  the  prescription  itself  and  as  to  its  effect  on  the  patient. 
Under  the  direction  of  an  assistant  professor  the  whole  class  may 
attend  a  therapeutic  conference,  or  quiz,  on  the  treatment  of  a  given 
class  of  diseases,  and  during  the  conference  several  of  the  men  who 
advise  plans  of  treatment  are  called  to  the  blackboard  to  put  in  black 
and  white  what  they  have  suggested.  When  they  have  finished, 
the  instructor,  who  has  continued  his  quiz  in  the  meantime,  criticizes 
the  pharmacy,  the  doses,  the  form,  the  combinations,  the  thera- 
peutics and  the  quantity  in  the  whole  prescription,  as  well  as  the 
Latin. 
The  number  of  occasions  on  which  such  criticisms  lead  to  howls 
of  delight  at  the  discomfort  of  the  man  at  the  blackboard  may  be 
subversive  of  discipline,  but  all  hands  remember  how  John  Jones 
wrote  for  nitrohydrochloric  acid,  iodide  of  potassium,  tincture  of 
