The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1880-10-21
A Little Latin.

An effort is being made to induce doc
tors to stop writing their prescriptions i'll
Latin and Use United States language
So many inoflensivc sick people have
been killed by druggist putting mp
lDbeiia and other dangerous drugs III
place of some mild and gentle purgative,
which the system requires ut tins time OF
year, on the Latin prescription OF .aphyS-
ician, that society at the East threaten
to take the law into their own hands and
puta stop to it. As a usual thing the
physician who graduates with high hon
ors at some high toned morgue, does not
know any more about the common Eng
Iish branches than is good for him, and
his handwriting is the mcrest goose
tracks. sort of delirium trcmcns on pa
per. Now, when You come to put such
writing MS that into Latin, to be read by
a sleepy prescription clerk who has been
routed out of bed at midnight IN ms
shirt sleeves, there can only be one result,
The patient will he worse the next day.
A sleepy drug clerk is only human, and
when he strikes one of those ingredients III
the prescription where it tells hun to put
mp thee saw-teeth of pOd0phYitHW, and
| the word looks more like pennyroynl
than it does like podophylinm, and
more like peppermint than like either
one of them, he is liable to trust a good
deal to luck and put in that which is the
least injurious. No drug clerk cares to
lose Il good position by not being able to
read stroke Of lightning and the result
is he puts up something, and then
charges enough more to make up for
what he doesn't know. There are forty
nine millions of people III this country,
whose lives to a greater or less extent
rest ON prescription clerks, and the east
ern society who have flung their banner
TO the breeze and sounded the death of
the dead languages will he embalmed IN
the hearts of Il grateful posterity. lheN
are doing noble work Dead languages
are all well enough for dead people, but
they are eminently out OF place III tins
age of animated things. Or course the
Topping off of the eXcrcscence will bring
doctors down to level with ordinary
mortals, and they will have to take their
chances. II may be claimed by the doc
tors that they will he unable to command
the respect and confidence of the com
munity if their remedies and things are
not locked up in Latin. We will sup
pose that man has eaten hearty meal
, of arsenic. and he begins to feel a distress
at the stomach. A doctor is sent for and
he comes and prcscribes A few min
utcs later another doctor comes (when n
man has been poisoned every doctor
within ten miles is sent for). The last
doctor asks the first one what he has
given the man, and the first doctor an
swers that he has prescribed "hgtrofcd
StSqai-Oridc forum.' The second
studies moment, with his finger to his
forehead, and says he approves OF the
remedy, and the friends of the patients
feel that he would be fool if he didn't
as the name is nearly two inches long
Well, the hytljdtcd SeSqHi-0Fidc Of tcr
rum is nothing but iron rust, such as cal
he scrapcd off of old nails, hut if the doc
tor had told his brother professional tina
he was giving the patient iron rust, ant
the other physician had approved of 1t
the probability is that the patient
friends would have bounced both doctors
and sent for one that knew something
Doctors have everything to contcn'
against, not only the ignorance of then
patients and the patients friends, bu
their own as well 1t is estimated that
two-thirds of college course is devoted
to learning the Latin names and applying
them, and the other third to the study o
how to cure people. The percentage Is
too great, but physician must under
stand all the technical terms, as he ~ La
bic to be called as witness Ill cour
sometime and if he should use any tern
that the jury could understand there
is no telling what the consequences
might be- Pcck'S WiraukCc SIM.