„ 1 35EDICAL PRESCRIBING. Ttrit011031 THE
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larz newspaper is the' *utak, of all ineditrara for presoribing physic. We are surprised that medical, men- should -not , see the perfect ith, surdity of letting fatients bite their consultations. Surely a man who can put " M.D." or' " M.R.C.S." after his name should know that a knowledge of drugs is a very small part of the physician's Qualifications. A boola knowledge of the stated symptoms, in- deed, together with therapeutics, does not form the half of what the medical man must know. It is the power of discriminating similar symptoms that is the true diagnosis of diseases ; the striking oat, by a clearheaded inventive activity, an equation of the sum, of all the symptoms, in conjunction with the patient's constitution and circumstances, that suggests the treatment. But this demands practised observation, habitual discrimination, and
i expertness, so to speak, in the algebra of medicine. There s no universal suffrage in medical government.
It is indiscreet even for medical men to discuss their own first ideas in the unprofessional public journals. A most respectable physician has been prescribing castor-oil for cholera, with an appa- rent - rent success, but n a very limited experience. Several others copy him ; and at last the Board of Health puts the prescription to a more rigid test. Out of 89 case,., the remedy proved undecided in 6 still. in course of treatment, Successful in 15, fatal in 68. Was not the rash adoption of the drug the direct result of iievis- paper consultation?' .D6es its consequence not amount to some- thing like manslaughter? If in this formal inquiry some portion of the Sixty-eight- patients died for their country's good-, there hare been'othera who have died for the buriosity—it 'was little better-6f the gentlenien who adopted as a suggestion that which ought only to have been a question. Have not the sixty-eight and their companions in the grave some claim for damages upon those medical men who have used them as "corpora" for experi- ment?
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