The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-05-16

Increasing use Of Drsss In This FER
Instead sf Cenpssnains ~
prescription.

Instead sf CenpesnAins ~
Prescription.
A comparatively recent invention. vastly
extended in its application within three or
four years. has wrought curious change
in the practice OF medicine. Country phy-
sicians 100 years ago. when there were
few druggists outside of considerable towns.
carried in their saddle bags or medicine
chests Az variety of drugs. pills.
powders, potions, lotions and
what not. ~ Such physicians made
up their own prescriptions and
furnished their patients with medicines. The
use OF medicines in the form OF tablets
tends more and more toward return of
modern physicians to the methods of their
predecessors. Physicians everywhere now
write fewer prescriptions than they wrote
ten years ago, or even two years
ago. and n the use of medicine
In the ~ - form Of tablets is ex-
tending 9zxW every day. O.
II is only ten or fifteen years since COM
pressed tablets of chlorate of potash began
10 be used. Other simple drugs were then
put up in tablet form. and gradually the va
riety of drugs and prescriptions thus pre-
pared was extended until now
! I includes ~ thousands of COM
pound s. S0 Any physician may
now have - almost any prescrp.
ton OF his own made up into tablets. Tho
usual requirement is that at least 900 tab
lets shall be ordered. Many well-known
prescriptions of famous physicians have al
ready attained wide celebrity in the medi-
cal world through their use in tablet form.
hundreds of liquid prescriptions
re thus used by AlA saturat-
ing inert material NMV W h~ the
mixture, Just as ~ homeo,,athic
remedies are prepared in the form of sugar
pellets. The tablet factories are constantly
experimenting with view TO reducing fur
ther drugs and prescriptions TO tablet form.
They are ready to vary known prescriptions
In accordance with the fancy
of individual A'NA physicians.
and to combine one VAT or m ore
prescriptions in single tab
let. The general use Of tablets instead of
prescriptions has great!v simpIihed the
practice of medicine The physician, IN
stead of writing prescription and instruct
ing his patient to have it compounded by
druggist, leaves the necessary number ftab-
lets with instructions as to the
time an manner OF * ~A taking.
Nearly every physician ~V is pro-
vided with some such y tablets.
and many use them in great quantities.
Tons of drugs are now put up in this form.
1t is the wholesale method of modern life
applied to the preparation of medicines.
Apothecaries have felt the effects of the
change in practice through the les
sening n the number Of pre-.
scriptions to be V compounded.
For the patient it has cheapened
the cost of doctoring. for the physician
obtains the tablets at so low rate that
he usually makes no charge for those sup
piled TO his patients. New as
the use n n of tablets is, the form
of the ~ tablet has been
greatly ~ improved since their in
PRODUCTION into medical practice. Tablets
are smaller and more compressed than they
were few years ago. The machinery for
making them originally
was, and AAA perhaps still is. con-
trolled by VvwW single whole
sale drug @s1 house Of this city.
but there are many manufacturers OF tab
lets here and elsewhere. When the pat
entees first began to call their products 10
the attention Of physicians, the
tablets very - IN slowly made their
way. because ~ ~ the patentees were
n OF widely P known in the med
ical profession Then they associated them
selves~yith famous drug house, and the
tabiers soon began to 60.
Only the stnii)iO. T.. and remedies put
up in tablet form are accessible to the
general public. The compounds are not
even known by - name outside
,S:v e: e. d. @s s's,ss,ss ssss; s:s: a:
cines they are not advertised in
other than medical newspapers. They come
to physicians with label that proclaims the
ingredients and their proportions. Physi-
clans have the good repute of the manu-
facturer as guarantee that tablets are made
of pure drugs and carefully compounded.
The best tablet manufacturers
employ skilled a A and careful
apot hecaries ~ - and buy their
drugs in large 49, quantities di.
rectly from manufacturers.
INTERESTING SECRET HISTORY OF AN OLD.
TIME REMEDY.
A certain well-known preparation Is -
largely prescribed by physicians that its use
by them may be said to be universal. Csn-
versationally it is spoken of among thsn-
selves as the r. & 5. Compo." II you
are i'll and call the doctor, no
matter what else 81 you get, you
are m Moderately o certain to Get
some one OF the - forms OF the
X. & s." prescription. Its use has been
growing more general for hundred years,
and has been vastly increased of late by
slight Improvements found to be important
in effects. The prescription, especially In
rural d;Stricts. Is usually prepared in fluid
form, sometimes in powders /; but of late 1t
has been found possible to prepare it in tab
lets, the form now so popular with physi-
clans for all standard m e l.
cines. 60 enormous ~ ~Ais the
d EN- d, fr m ~0 physi-
clans solely, for he ~ various
forms of this preparation that single
manufacturing chemist in New York City