204 
THE  PHYSICIAN'S  PRESCRIPTION,  ETC. 
wholesale  and  retail  houses.  Without  further  specifying,  I  may 
be  allowed  to  state  that  the  ointments  procured  from  Messrs. 
Powers  &  Weightman,  and  from  C.  Ellis,  Son  &  Co.,  came  fully 
up  to  the  proportion  of  50  per  cent.  The  poorest  sample  con- 
tained but  10  per  cent.,  others  contained  15,  18,  25,  etc.  All 
these  samples  were  purchased  for,  and  represented  to  be,  pure 
officinal  articles ;  and  it  shows  how  necessary  it  is  for  the  drug- 
gist to  be  careful,  and  fully  understand  the  character  of  the 
preparations  he  may  have  occasion  to  purchase. 
THE  PHYSICIAN'S  PRESCRIPTION.    TO  WHOM  DOES  IT 
BELONG? 
VicJcsburg,  Miss.,  March  28£/i,  1866. 
Editor  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy  : 
Dear  Sir  : — I  desire  to  present  to  your  notice  some  views  that 
have  been  engendered  by  the  observation  and  careful  study  of 
the  subject  for  the  past  year,  as  applying  particularly  to  this  sec- 
tion of  the  United  States,  namely  :  The  ill  effects  of  the  renewal 
of  prescriptions  without  the  sanction  of  the  Physician,  and  the 
best  method  of  correcting  the  evil. 
There  are  hundreds  of  recipes  repeated  that  the  Physician 
never  authorized.  When  a  Physician  is  called  to  see  a  patient, 
he  writes  his  recipe,  for  which  he  is  duly  paid.  That  fee  is  ten- 
dered him  for  the  medical  knowledge  and  skill  he  supplies,  as 
bearing  on  that  special  case  of  sickness.  Now,  when  the  patient 
has  recovered,  (through  the  beneficial  effects  of  the  medicine,) 
he  has  received  his  equivalent  for  money  invested.  Has  that 
patient  any  right  to  use  the  recipe  again  for  another  attack  of 
sickness  ?  J  think  not',  but  that  view  only  relates  to  the  injus- 
tice done  the  Physician  ;  now  for  the  main  point :  The  patients, 
(especially  the  poorer  and  more  ignorant  classes,)  not  only  con- 
stantly repeat  recipes  without  the  sanction  of  the  Physician,  for 
their  own  use,  but  they  will  give  it  to  other  members  of  their  own 
family,  and,  in  numerous  cases  coming  under  my  own  knowledge, 
they  sell  the  recipes  to  others  of  their  acquaintance  whom  they 
fancy  it  will  relieve,  simply  because  it  cured  them.  The  consti- 
tutional effects  of  the  same  remedies  in  different  temperaments 
