REPORT OF A JOINT COM­MIT­TEE OF THE PHIL­A­DEL­PHIA COUN­TY MED­I­CAL SO­CI­E­TY AND THE PHIL­A­DEL­PHIA COL­LEGE OF PHAR­MA­CY, REL­A­TIVE TO PHY­SIC­IANS’ PRE­SCRIP­TIONS. (Published by order of the Board of Trus­tees of the Phil­a­del­phia Coll. of Pharm.)

The joint Committees of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, appointed for the purpose of considering the means best adapted to prevent the occurrence of mistakes in the compounding of the prescriptions of Physicians by Apothecaries, beg leave to report that they have given to the subject all the attention that its importance demands, and present the following hints as the results of their joint deliberations. They have taken the liberty of adding, also, a few general hints on the relations that should exist between physicians and phar­ma­ceu­tists.

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A. In Respect to Physicians.

1. Physicians should write their prescriptions carefully and legibly, making use of good paper, and, whenever possible, of pen and ink. When obliged to write with a pencil, they should take the precaution to fold the prescription twice, so as to prevent its being defaced.

2. The nomenclature of the United States Pharmacopœia is becoming annually more in favor with phar­ma­ceu­tists; a statement attested by the fact that 1500 copies of the book of Latin Labels for shop furniture, published by the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, have been disposed of within three years. Physicians are also becoming more alive to the merits of our national Codex, and they are respectfully urged to familiarize themselves with its nomenclature, and to adhere to it strictly in their prescriptions.

3. The numerous treatises on Materia Medica, Pharmacy and the Practice of Medicine, of English origin, that are reprinted in this country, not­with­stand­ing they are generally interlarded with the formulæ of our own Pharmacopœia, tend, nevertheless, very much to confuse the physician and apothecary, in the use and exact meaning of terms in prescriptions. To obviate the difficulties thus occasioned, the physician should, when he prescribes a medicine, which is not officinal, nor in common use, state on his prescription, either in a note at the bottom, or within parenthesis, following the article, the authority or work from whence it is derived, as “Griffith’s Formulary,”—“Ellis’ Formulary,”—“Braithwaite’s Retrospect,” etc.

4. Physicians would lessen the risk of errors in their prescriptions, and increase the chances of their detection should they be made, by observing the following hints.

1st. Write the name of the patient at the top of the prescription, unless a good reason prevents this being done; in which case, it should be expressed as for Mr. G—, Mrs. R—, or Mrs. S.’s child, or for Master T—, so as to convey to the apothecary some idea of the age of the patient. {54}

2d. The date and name of the physician or his initials, should always be appended, and, whenever practical, the dose and mode of administering the medicine directed.