The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1907. KEEPING THE PATIENT IN THE DARK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3769, 13 July 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1907. KEEPING THE PATIENT IN THE DARK.

It has often been suggested that medical prescriptions should be written in plain English, instead of Latin, which scholars say is not of classical purity. Inquisitive patients may, no doubt, be anxious to know the components of the mixture or liniment ordered for their benefit, but an incident related by Professor Anderson Stuart to a meeting of the Ladies Panitar}' Association at Sydney recently, shows that the faculty, at any rate, has good reason for retaining the practise of conveying its recommendations in the words of an ancient and generally unknown language. It enables them to charge a fee—no doubt sometimes a high one —when the use of common terms would probably have led to their being ordered off the premises. The worthy professor was giving many useful hints about “ The foot and footgear,” showing the evil effects of badlyfitting boots and compressing stockings. He also enforced the value of pedal cleanliness. Once, he said (reports the Sydeny Daily Telegraph) a medical man was consulted by a patient who complained of cold feet and resultant sleeplessness. After examination, the doctor diagnosed the trouble as due to dirt, the adequate remedy for which would be the ordinary soap-cleaning process. To have told the patient so would, probably, have been regarded as an insult, and have lost the doctor his fee. Therefore, he sat down and wrote an elaborate prescription in an unknown tongue, a pound of soap, skilfully disguised, forming the essential isgredient. This the man was instructed to apply at night time, to the accompaniment of a vigorous rubbing and careful drying of the extremities. Linder this treatment the patient got rid of his trouble, and was grateful to his medical attendant. From which it may be inferred that there is good reason for retaining prescriptions in the accustomed Latinised forms.