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.
Prescriptions are written on everything from paper bags and scraps of wrapping paper on down-and up. Mohammed showed somewhat.of the medical spirit in writing the Koran on pieces of bone and other waste material picked up in his wanderings.
A prescription is the most important product of a dignified profession, and there is every reason why it should represent the acme of neatness.
A physician should use his own private prescription blanks, ordered and paid for by himself. The sheets should be of standard size (about 3 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches), so that they will snugly fit in the regular box files so commonly used by pharmacists. If they are too small they do not present a neat appearance and are rather hard for the druggist to locate if it is necessary to refer to them again. If a blank is too large it may have to be folded to fit a box file, or if a druggist uses the wire files the sheets project beyond the edges of the others and are apt to get torn or become unreadable through handling and the usual accumulation of dust. The blank should be of good white paper, which is neater and more dignified, and shows the writing better than does a colored paper.
At the top of the blank should be, in modest type and black ink, the doctor's name and some information concerning him. It is not considered good taste to use the degrees, but the abbreviation Dr. followed by the name as the doctor uses it-that is, the full Christian name or part or only initials and surname. The home and office address, office hours, and home and office phone numbers should also be given, and the U. S. registry number, and usually nothing more. A blank arranged in this way enables the druggist to translate the prescriber's signature, to readily reach him should it be necessary, and serves the purpose to some extent of a business card. When instructions for the patient are left on these blanks, they constitute a modest, ethical advertisement, the purpose that is served by the blotter or calendar of the merchant. Something like the blank on the next page is recommended.
Now, the nice blanks so generously furnished by the friendly (?) druggist. If they did not bear the druggist's advertisement they would entail an obligation that should be avoided for many reasons; but free blanks usually bear some legend, as"Take this to the Avenue Pharmacy."The doctor in signing the blank makes printed instructions also a part of his order, and tells the patient to take the prescription to that store, to the exclusion of all others. This is not only a gratuitous insult to the other druggists, but to the patient, as the choice of a druggist is a matter without the province of the physician, and he should not specify unless there are particular reasons, of interest to the patient, for his doing so, and then the patient has the right to know those reasons.
Dr. J. C. BLANK
RESIDENCE: 1776 FIRST AVENUE PHONE 2893
Office: 736 Central Bank Building Hours: 2 to 4 P. H. Phone 1345 RIG ,1736 BLANKVILLE
The standpoint of the other druggists and a frequent result are well shown in the following incident:
A young physician located in a suburban neighborhood with five drug-stores. The active physicians doing practice in that section were using the blanks liberally supplied by two of those stores. If druggist A referred a patient to one of the old physicians, he either never heard of the case again or the patient returned with a prescription which carried instructions,"Take this to B's drugstore."The new man used his own blanks with the result that in a . few months three druggists were referring all unattached patients to him and the other two stores were just about as friendly as if he had been using their blanks.
 
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