The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-04-25

MEDICINE IN TABLErA
FSom Ms Nsv Yeyk San Of fs6yxsry5 s, 1874
yncrsssins Use Of Drugs I'm This Form
Instead 1f Compounding 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 phy-
sicians 100 years ago, when there were
few druggists outside of considerable towns,
carried in their saddle bags or medicine
chests variety Of drugs, pills.
powders, DA potions, lotions and
what not. nI 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
int e NJ ~ form of tablets is ex-
tending <a1~ every day. q
1t is only ten or fifteen years since COM
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
Il includes a D. thousands of COM
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-known
T.. ~b.tetn nsa Iaxr
ready attained wide celebrity in the medi.
!; !; s: 4; !: +: :!
remedies are prepared in the form of sugar
pelIets.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
.:. :: ::. !; ;;$.s; : :ay;;; :': 4;
let. The general use of tablets instead of
prescriptions has greatly simpIihed the
practice of medicine. The physician. in
stead of writing prescription and INSTRUCT
ing his patient to have it compounded by a
druggist, leaves the necessary number OF tab
lets. with instructions as to the
time n d manner of XaA taking.
ss EssGy ,s every .55y RnysssP1 sae1 Is isn,e,s
and many use them in great quantities.
Tons of drugs are now put up in this form.
IT 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 ~ "a number of pre-
scrptions to be Vf~V compounded.
For the patient il 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 a - of tablets is, the form
of the XlFZ tablet has been
greatly ~ improved since their in
PRODUCTION into medical practice. Tablets
are smaller and more compressed than they
we're few years ago. The machinery for
making them originally
was, and NFAM perhaps still is. con-
trolled by ~ u single whole
sale drug 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 IN slowly made their
way. because NJ ID ~ the patentees were
not widely & known in the med
ical profession. Then they associated them
seIves@with famous drug house, and the
tablets soon began to go.
Only the simpler drugs and remedies put
mp in tablet form are accessible to the
general public. The compounds are not
even known by u name outside
4: 's:y @;:; e: as' GE B'si;:;5'a. il; a:s,
cines they are ~ not advertised in
other than medical newspapers. They come
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
drugs in large quantities di.
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-
versationally it is spoken of among them
selves as the :" X. & S. Compo." If you
are i'll and call the doctor, no
matter what else a ~ you get, you
are m oderately ~ certain to get
some one of the forms OF the
r. & 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 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 d l.
cines. So enormous A@Ais the
demand. FIR m ~ 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
tablets in the wear ISo3-and this be II