The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-04-23

MEDICINE IN TABLETR
F>e"' has Asw Ysv& San OF ffstvssrys $. ss1A
Sncressins Use Of Drugs IN rhis FsrD
Instead ofJompeunding by
Prescription.
A comparatively recent invention, vastly
extended in its application within three OF
four years. has wrought a curious chanqo
In the practice of medicine. Country phy-
scians 100 years ago, when there were
few druggists outside of considerable towns.
carried in their saddle bags or medicine
chests a. variety Of drugs, pills,
What not. M Such physicians made
their patients with medicines. The
use of medicines In the form of tablets
tends more and more toward a return Of
modern physicians to the methods OF theis
predecessors. Physicians everywhere now
write fewer prescriptions than they wrote
ten years ago, or even two years
ago, and the use of medicine
a 1.-THE ~ form of tablets Is ex-
tie ding every day.
1t is only ten or fifteen years since cons
pressed tablets of chlorate 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-
pared was extended until now
/ includes M Dh thousands of COM
p ound S. Il Fs/ Any physician may
now have -~ almost any prescrip-
ton Of his own made up into tablets. Tho
usual requirement is that at least 5000 tab.
lets shall be ordered. Many well-knowu
prescriptions of famous physicians have ale
ready attained a wide celebrity in the medi.
cal world through their use in tablet form.
Hundreds of liquid prescriptions
re thus used by MLA saturat-
ing inert material NnV W ithe the
mixture, just as homeopathic
remedies are prepared in the form OF sugar
pellets.fs 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 physicians,
and to combine one NA2 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 a prescription and inssruct-
ing his patient to have it compounded by 2
druggist, leaves the necessary number Of tab
lets /. with instructions as to tho
time a n manner of - AM takin &.
Nearly every physician SS2 is pro-
vided with some such . tablets
and many use them in great quantities.
Tons of drugs are now put up in this form.
Ii 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 in the number of pre-.
scrptions TO be VrEN 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 = - of tablets Is, the form
of the V% - tablet has been
greatly G> 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 ~ ~ a single whole
sale drug - house of this city,
but there are many manufacturers of tab
lets here and elsewhere. When the pat
cntees first began to call their products to
the attention of physicians, the
tablets very ~ slowly made their
way. because ~ ID ~ the patentecs were
not widely ~ known in the med
ical profession. Then they associated them-
seves~with a famous drug house, and the
tablets soon began to go.
Only the sinlp.e'" drugs and remedies put
up in tablet form are accessible to the
general public. The compounds are not
they are not @Z pate medi-
cines they are ~ not advertised in
other than medical newspapers. They come
TO ophysicians 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 ~ ~ and careful
apot he carries NJ - and buy their
drugs in large Quantities de
rectly from manufacturers.
INTERESTING SECRET HISTORY OF AN OLD.
TIME REMEDY.
A certain well-known preparation is so
largely prescribed by physicians that its use
by them may be said TO be universal. Con-
vcrsationally it is spoken of among them-
selves as the " X. & 5. Compo." IL you
are i'll and call the - doctor, no
matter what else M - you get, you
are m moderately certain to get
some one of the 14-~ forms of the
"R. & 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 il
has been found possible to prepare it in tab
lets. the form now so popular with physi-
clans for all standard m e d | :
cines. So enormous AA the
demand, fr m VvV physi-
clans solely, for the 1> various s
forms of this preparation that a single
manufacturing chemist in New York City
made and sold $4,000 pounds of these
tablets in the year Iso3-and this, be IL
borne in mind. was to physicians alone, or
TO fill orders from dealers from whom phy-
sicians obtain their supplies. Every physi-
clan of eminence has his " r. * S."
formula, varying more or less from the
..fl.. al. ~.