The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1873-09-19
neutrality-suspicious. Lars,

At the recent session of the Blair
County Court his Honor Judge Gean,
in his charge to the Grand Jury, laid
down the dictum that druggists who
put up physicians prescriptions for
liquor in local option counties do 50 at
their own risk. This ruling of Judge
Deans is provoking widespread com
ment. some maintaining that it is an
embodiment of the law as it stands on
the statute-book, while others denounce
it as unconstitutional, not to say alb
surd. The latest criticism, says the
Altoona Tribune, that we have seen is
promulgated by the New York World,
and we transfer the same to our col
umns to afford our readers opportunity
TO examine that wherein said authority
deems the ruling radically wrong:
PENNSYLVANIA has again produced judi
cial decision of which in point of originality
it may well be proud. Several a9othecarleS
d of Tyrone having been convicted of the he'll
nous offence of dispensing alcoholic com
pounds, and their own palliative plea being
that they wsre there in fulfilling the written
orders of the medical practitioners, J udge
+ Dean delivered himself OF the oracular Opin-
ion that druggists are authorized 10 sell IL
quor for medical purposes, subject however
to the risk of indictment. a physician $
! prescription Is not OF Itself safeguard Tor
. the druggist We Viii 10: pause TO inquire
/ how a man can be authorized TO do that
/ which subjects him to a criminal indictment,
but IL is of more importance TO patients at
I large that the newly defined relations be-
tween doctors and druggists should be clear
. " understood.
In former times every physician dispensed
/ his own medicines, as many country physl-
/ clans now do. administering to his clients
mt mic
I dictate Z: but the division of labor came
more and more into vogue the mechanical
details OF compromising these pills and pO-
tiOns were delegated to druggists, who We're
not expected to possess amy knowledge OF
the proper treatment of disease, but were
and are only held responsible Tor the purity
of their wares and the accuracy of theu
. weights and measures. Inc physician, Is
before. uses his own judgment "a 10 the ma
ture and doses of the med-cameuts to bC
given, and it has hitherto heen held by the
medical and most legal authorities that the
apOthecary Is as much bound to fulfill IN:
prescri iptiOn the banker is 10 cash tn,
? checks Of his depOsitors. It is penal of
. tense in many countries (and should be here
for an apotheCary to alter the quantity o
any ingredient III any prescription or to sub
. stItute any other drug in lieu thereof. His
. agency is supposed 10 be purely mechanical
( involving no discretionary power, and th'
= . prescription under which he acts has al way!
been considered as his Safeguard" "
According TO Judge Dean, however, We
have changed all that; the druggist is to bs
/ umpire d to the fitness Of each ingredient
= in his principal 5 recipe, and if he entertain
/ a dOUbt of the medicinal or moral influence
of any one component thereof, il is his right
. and his duty to omit il. In the opinion Ol
; the Court saws Judge Dean, "a druggist
who sells liquor for any purpose whatever
. or upon the prescription OF the most eminent
physician in the country, docs so at his owr
/ risk So that if Judge Dean himself were
lying 1T the point of death and his physician
deemed alcohol the only thing TO save him
The druggist would be doing nothing more
= than prudent in refusing 10 put any spirit
win. Gall in the mixture ordered and there
. by letting Judge Dean die
Nay. since doctors are in the habit OF pre-
, . scribing other drugs Of an even more poison
/ Gus nature than alcohol, the same principle
must, q joTtjOsi, apply to these also. and the
apothecary who eutertaius prejudice
against calomel, or regards arouite and
. / strychnine as dangerously unfit for human
. consumption, should cOnscieuti0Usly refrain
. from assuming the risk of dispensing
them. IN fact If the most eminent physi-
clans in the country ar to he confined to
the formality of writing prescriptions which
nObodyis allowed to compound, il Is difficult
TO see the use Of having either physicians OF
. druggists at all Perhaps the simplest way
/ to manage the ills that flesh is heir to would
/ De to pass legislative enaarmeuts against all
, : nosology, and To cOnfide TO Judge Dean the
duty OF enforcing the statutes for each case
made and provided.