Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-02-26
MISTAKES IN MEDICINE
careless Physlcians Who Make GRAY. ~
rors In Their PRESCRIPTIONS.

MISTAKES IN MEDICINE.
Careless Physicians Who Mai. c..
fors In Their Prescriptions.
"ihat was a hard run Of it," re-.
marked a downtown clerk to a re-
porter for the San, who dropped in
drug store late the other night. ..peonle
a about mistakes of pharmacists, Int
no one mistake is made in a druo store
to twenty by doctors who write prescrin-
tons. L have just had a case which
might have caused a death if | had not
discovered an error by a physician in
time to prevent it. Two hours aoo a
man came in here with a prescrint;on
He was in a hurry for it. because the
person for whom it was intended was
suffering greatly, and something had
to be done. The physician WHO attend
cd the case wrote out a prescription.
h medicines he intended to give
were to relieve the suffering, but in
compromising the prescription l found
that he hadincluded enougho of a power
full drug to have killed twenty persons
in the doses he intended to give. It
was not a case where I could make an
alteration, as druggists frequently have
to do. l could not make up the pre-
scrlption, because I knew it would
cause death. The only thing to be done
was to hunt up the doctor. 1 had to
hunt him up myself, because he would
have been very angry if I had sent the
mar after him, and we would have lost
his custom. l took q cab and drove to
his house. There l found he had
moved away, and 1 had to go a mile
farther before I found him. It was an
hour and a half before 1 got back and
filled the prescription"
"Do such things frequently occurP"
"They happen every day. In most
cases they are detected by the druggist
before harm results. A pharmacist
must know the n re of q drug, for
what purpose it is used and the amount
given in ordinary doses. This is espe-
cially true of poisons or potent reme-
dies. By this means if errors are made
we can detect them. The mere acct
dental addition of a small angle to the
sign used for " dram will make it an
ounce and multiplics the quantity
eighty times. That little mark is easily
made and it frequently is. Justyester-
day a prescription came to me from a
physician who wanted to give a patient
a medicine so potent that three drops
would have killed him. In order to
prevent o%verdoses the medicine was to
be mixed with four ounces of some
harmless liquid, which is known to the
trade us the 'vehicle;' that is, the harm
less drug used to dilute the potent
remedy. In this prescription the ply
sician had simply reversed the two
drugs, giving four ounces Of the poison
Gus medicine and a few drops of the
vehicle OF course that was a mistake
on its face, and 1 simply reversed the
quantities"
"Do these errors arise from the care
lessness of the physician"
81 can't say it is carelessness, but
something is wrong. l can seq that
some errors arise from the fact that
members of q family talk to a physician
when he is writing the prescription,
and he Inadvertently writes the wrong
medicine. If, however, physicians
would carefully read their prescriptions
before sending them out there would be
less trouble, but more than half the
doctors write out the prescription, tea,
it off the tab and give it to the patient
or his friends without looking at i
again. If physicians would read theil
prescriptions some very common errors
would be avoided. For example, it no.
infrequently happens that morphine is
written for quinine. Physicians in good
standing in Chicago have written or
prescriptions calling for six-grain NOR
phine capsules. Now anybody woul(
know that was not the thing tina
was wanted. Such prescription
would get into a drus
store if the doctors were only more
careful in their work, or if they would
read their prescriptions before sending
them out. But the greatest trouble i
in illegible writing. Doctors as a rul,
are careless writer's. Their prescrip
tons are difficult to read. Many a tim'
l have been compelled to go to a doc
tors Office and get him to decipher
prescription, and every druggist ha!
had the same experience. Now, if there
is anything that should be written il
a clear, bold hand it is a prescription
Think how mitch depends upon it's cor
rect composition by the druggist. l
he should make a mistake no excuse
would be made for him. Scores of doc
tors never think of this. They write
prescriptions in bad penmanship ane
Tire druggist has to trust to luck
1t seems to me that good penmanshil
should be made one of the requisites Q
a physicians right to practice. Medi
cal colleges should have a penmanshil
department and require it's students t.
take q full course before graduating
In that way many mistakes of physi
clans now attributed to druggists Nigh
be avoided. Chicago San.
MONSTER CANALS.