2  Incompatibility  in  Prescriptions.  {Am'ja°nri£oarm' 
we  to  know  but  that,  in  the  event  of  some  chemical  or  pharmaceu- 
tical change,  the  physician  does  not  mean  just  such  a  change,  and 
nothing  else? 
At  first  glance  it  seems  strange,  but  there  are  some  most  successful 
physicians  who,  every  now  and  then,  write,  pharmaceutically  and 
chemically,  the  most  incompatible  prescriptions.  Yet  they  have 
success.  And  their  happy  results  can  only  be  due  to  the  formation 
of  certain  new  products  or  an  alteration  in  pharmaceutical  character 
of  old  ones.  It  does  not  follow  that  all  prescriptions  thus  written 
are  of  the  highest  therapeutical  value.  Far  from  it.  The  tendency 
of  the  times  is  steadily  in  the  direction  of  greater  simplicity  in  pre- 
scription writing. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  physician  seems  to  depend  in  large 
measure  upon  the  pharmacist  for  detecting  any  chemical  or  pharma- 
ceutical incompatibility,  and  that  the  pharmacist  depends,  solely  and 
alone,  upon  the  physician  for  recognizing  any  therapeutical  incom- 
patibility. A  physician  with  his  many  duties  cannot  be  expected  to 
have  at  his  command  the  vast  detail  of  pharmaceutical  facts,  nor  can 
the  pharmacist  be  considered  negligent  in  not  possessing  an  extended 
acquaintance  with  the  application  of  drugs  in  medicine ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  some  elementary  knowledge  as  to  how  drugs  act  and  for  what  pur- 
poses they  may  be  employed  would  be  of  great  practical  value  to  the 
pharmacist  in  affording  him  a  clear  idea  of  the  therapeutical  intent  of 
the  prescriber,  and  the  ability  to  detect  any  deviation  through  a  chemi- 
cal or  pharmaceutical  error.  An  argument  for  therapeutical  knowledge 
is  not  a  step  in  the  direction  of  counter-prescribing.  It  is  only  a  plea 
for  broader  education — for  elementary  therapeutics  on  distinctly  phar- 
maceutical lines.  With  therapeutics,  pure  and  simple,  the  pharmacist 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do.  That  is  solely  the  province  of  the 
physician.  Medicine  and  pharmacy  are  making  rapid  scientific  pro- 
gress, not  in  the  same  way,  though  co-laborers  in  the  same  cause,  but 
upon  certain  definite  lines  of  work  and  study,  yearly  becoming  more 
distinct  and  widely  separated,  rendering  each  the  more  dependent  on 
the  other. 
Concerning  special  instances  of  incompatibility,  the  writer,  some 
time  ago,  devised  a  set  of  "  notes,"  and  they  have  been  found  of  such 
good  service,  though  doubtless  much  of  the  subject  matter  has  been 
duplicated  in  your  own  personal  experiences,  that  he  feels  impelled  to 
present  them  in  their  entirety. 
