The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-05-09
SEDTcIyE IN TABZsYA
From fas NssO Yerk Ssn Of February 5, fSpA


increasing Use oil Drugs In This Fovuv
Instead AZ Compromising by
Prescription.
A comparatively recent invention, vastly
extended in its application within three or
four years, has wrought a curious change
in the practice of medicine. Country ply
sicians 100 years ago, when there were
few druggists outside of considerable towns,
carried in their saddle bags or medicine
chests aS variety OF drugs. pills.
powders, a - "a potions. lotions and
what not. SrZ 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 - "a the use of medicine
n = h c NJ ~ form OF tablets Is ex-
tending ~ every day. .
1t Is only ten or fifteen years since com.
pressed tablets OF chloratc Of potash began
to be used. Other simple drugs were then
put up in tablet form, and gradually the va
riety Of drugs and prescriptions thus pre-
| t includes MsM thousands of COM
pound s. wN Any physician may
now have &&-Y almost any prescrip-
ton of his own made up into tablets. Tho
usual requirement is that at least 1000 tab
lets shall be ordered. Many welLknown
prescriptions of famous physicians have ale
ready attained wide celebrity in the mcdi.
cal world through their use in tablet form.
hundreds of liquid prescriptions
re thus used by @AVA saturat-
ing inert material NmZ wit he tho
mixture, Just as homoeoy yathic
remedies are prepared in the form of sugar
pellets.ss 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 physicians.
and to combine one NAV or more
prescriptions in single tab
let. The general use Of tablets instead OF
prescriptions has greatly simplihed the
practice of medicine. The physician. in-
stead of writing prescription and instruct-
ing his patient to have it compounded by q
druggist, leaves the necessary number of tab-
let's with instructions - as to the
time d manner of A~M taking.
Nearly every physician S12 is pro-
yded with some such 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 ~zrz. through the les
sening in the number OF pre-
~~.;ott1.s A. ba VrtrTI9# ~ ~ ~, - n a, Al
For the patient it ~ has cheapened
the cost of doctoring, for the physician
obtains the tablets at so low a rate that
he usually makes no charge for those sup.
piled to - his patients. New as
the use k&g n of tablets is, the form
of the NJ tablet has been
greatly ~ improved since their in
PRODUCTION into medical practice. Tableta
are smaller and more compressed than they,
we're few years ago The machinery Tor
making them originally
was, and AAN perhaps still Is, con-
troled by wv a single whole
sale drug ~MD 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 to
the attention - of physicians, the
tablets very ~ n IN slowly made their
way because the patentees were
OF widely G~ known in the ned
ical profession Then they associated them
selves~vith famous drug house, and the
tablets soon began to 60.
Only the simpler uIugs and remedies put
up in tablet form are accessible to the
general public. The compounds are not
even known by name outside
the m edic al a. n n profession. - A .
they are not w. patent medi-
cincs they are ~ not advertised In
other than medical newspapers. They como
tophysicians with a 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 and careful
apot he ecaries ~ - and buy their
drugs in large quantities d..
recty from manufacturers.
INTERESTING SECRET HISTORY OF Ay OLD
TINE REMEDY.
A certain well-known preparation Is so
largely prescribed by physicians that its use
by them may be said to be universal. Con-
versationally it is spoken of among them
selves as the " X. & S. Compo." If you
matter what else a. you get, you
are m derately w. certain to get
some one Of the forms of the
% K. & s." prescription. Its use has been
growing more general for a hundred years.
and has been vastly increased of late by
slight Improvements found to be important
in effects. The prescription, especially in
rural districts, is usually prepared in fluid
form, sometimes in powders but of late it
has been found possible to prepare it in tab
lets, the form now so popular with physi-
clans for all standard - m c d :
cines. SO enormous A~Ais tho
demand. FIR o m w. physi-
clans solely, for the various
forms of this preparation that single
manufacturing chemist in New York City
made and sold $4,000 pounds of these
faklefc in the wear ISna--and this be IL