Practical prescribing and dispensing for medical students / by William Kirkby.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Practical prescribing and dispensing for medical students / by William Kirkby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    PREFACE. It is not unusual to hear a complaint that medical students receive an education which is defective in so far as relates to the writing of prescriptions. There are some who even venture to say that the present great vogue of factory-made medicines among medical practitioners is due to this defect. The facilities provided in many schools of medicine for the teaching of this subject are so scanty as to lead one to think that the complaint is not altogether without founda- tion; and the books dealing with it are, in not a few instances, lacking in definiteness of aim. The medical man neither requires a training in the methods of tincture making, nor in the manufacture of sulphuric acid; still less does he need to be taught how to dispense incompatible prescriptions. These are branches of pharmacy which may be well left to the pharmacist. In order, however, to be able to avail himself of the ample resources of the national Pharmacopoeia, and to equip himself so as to be independent of the compound mysteries of the drug factory, he should have, in the course of his curriculum, opportunities for acquiring proficiency in the writing of prescriptions, of making a practical acquaintance with the various forms in which medicines are administered, and of learning how to avoid the prescribing of incompatible drugs. Under the late Professor Leech I had an oppor- tunity some few years ago of putting into operation a