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.
The use of these preparations by the medical profession is certainly carried to excess. The distressing neglect of Materia Medica by the majority of our medical colleges is probably the chief cause of the fault. Students are given a limited knowledge of a few drugs. They are not sufficiently grounded in a knowledge of medicines as to enable them to meet the demands of practice or to intelligently discriminate between the good and the bad of what is afterward offered them. They soon realize the inadequacy of their armamentarium and seize upon any suggested additions. This means, of course, that they fall an easy prey to the detail man, the circular, or the well-filled advertisement page.
Many of the patent or proprietary medicines are excellent preparations. Our Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary are stocked with remedies originally introduced to the profession in this way; so, if for no other reason, it would ill become the physician to indiscriminately rail against them. To impress the lesson it is only necessary to mention Acetphenetidin, Sulphonmethane, Phenol Salicylate, and a host of others might be cited.
This is not to be construed as advocating proprietary medicines, and before adding any such remedy to his armamentarium the preserver should know its value. Almost unlimited help can be derived from "New and Non-official Remedies" and "The Propaganda for Reform"of the Journal of the A. M. A.
The fact remains, however, that the more a physician knows of Materia Medica and the more he studies the Pharmacopoeia and the National Formulary, the less frequently does he have to go outside of them for his prescription material. The detail man, to the student of Materia Medica, is often a source of valuable information. They frequently present new products of decided merit. The plea is not to avoid them, but to intelligently weigh their statements.
The prescriber should not be urged to confine himself to the standards, but to have intelligent reasons when he goes to other sources.
 
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