This section is from the book "Practical Materia Medica And Prescription Writing", by Oscar W. Bethea. Also available from Amazon: Practical Materia Medica and Prescription Writing.
Prescription blanks should be securely bound in small books of about 50 sheets. It is better to have these wired at the top and perforated so that the sheets can be easily torn out. The books need not have covers, but should have a V back that will enable them to fit into a regular leather case. Every other sheet should be plain, colored paper for making a carbon copy. This will give twenty-five originals to each book. In lots of eighty books (2000 prescription blanks) they should not cost over about eight cents each.
There can be no reason against keeping carbon copies, and there are certainly many advantages. Twenty-five cents' worth of carbon paper will last almost any physician a year. A sheet is cut the size of the prescription blank and is merely transferred after each writing. One carbon sheet answers well for several books.
It is impossible for any physician to remember all that he prescribes, and a copy of all the prescriptions for a case filed with the other data is an invaluable record. Again, everyone makes mistakes, and the habit of rereading the copies after leaving each case, or at least at night, is a practice that cannot be too highly recommended. What physician has not spent many anxious moments, after leaving a case, wondering if he did not write Corrosivi instead of Mitis or some similar possibility? How easy it is to get peace of mind by referring to a carbon copy!
Referring to the copies of the day's prescriptions is also a valuable check on the day's work, and will frequently remind one of a consultation that might otherwise have gone uncharged.
In case of error on the part of the druggist the doctor has indisputable evidence as to what he wrote, no matter how the original may have been altered.
 
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