It is an excellent practice to examine the medicine the patient is taking on each visit after prescribing. This is particularly desirable on the first visit after starting treatment. The first object is to see that the medicine has been properly prepared. Even a physician without pharmaceutical experience can soon learn what should be the appearance of the remedy ordered. Unfortunately, it is a fact that the careful observer will frequently find cause to justify this practice. Gross errors and evident substitutions are not common, but frequently a powder has not been properly dissolved, an emulsion has been imperfectly made, a dusting powder is gritty, an ointment shows lack of proper incorporation, or a preparation has not been mixed in the order to obtain the best results.

A prescriber by seeing the finished product can best learn his own errors in combination and improve upon his work in that particular field. He sees that he is ordering quantities too large for capsules, that agents he thought would go well together are hopelessly incompatible, and he gets a better idea as to odor, taste, and general appearance of the remedies he is imposing upon a trusting public.

Another important object is to see that the patient is getting the proper amount of the remedy. If four fluidounces of a preparation is ordered and a teaspoonful is to be taken three times a day, and it is found that after five days only about a fourth of the preparation has been taken, something is wrong. Either the spoon is too small, is not being properly filled, or the regular number of doses is not being taken. If twelve capsules are ordered, and six are to be taken the first day, the next morning's visit should find only six remaining. It will be found that, among poorer patients particularly, the second visit will frequently find the prescription still unfilled, or, if the medicine is promptly obtained, that constant effort is sometimes necessary to secure for the patient the proper care as to the administration of the remedies. Mothers are apt to humor children who object to unpleasant remedies. Men who are not sick enough to require a nurse are very apt to take a remedy only when there is pressing demand for it. And yet the neighbors, the family, and even the patient hold the physician responsible for the progress of the case, irrespective of all conditions.