DOCTORS’ HANDWRITING.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 286, 2 May 1929, Page 2

DOCTORS’ HANDWRITING.

THE ILLEGIBLE PRESCRIPTION. 1 I “Is it possible that sncibbery may 'some day compel the cultivation of a vile fist as the dist'netive mark of social superiority, much as the dropin’ of the final ‘g’ was once imposed in certain huntin’ and shootin’ circles?” This question is asked by the British Medical Journal in the course of an article cm “Doctors’ Handwriting.” “The reproach of illegibility,” it is stated, “has long attached to the handwriting of doctors; but the guilt, if guilt it be, appears to be shared by many others. In business houses, for example., it is stated that the financial, loss from errors due to bad handwriting amount to a very large sum each year.” Referring to the fact that elementary school children wrote mere clearly than these attending secondary

schools, the writer says: “Only in elementary schools, it appears, where the j syllabus is not yet overburdened, and the child is not torced to take notes at* lightning speed is there time lo build up a legible copybook script." ! The article concludes: “Perhaps . . . j the doctor’s script is not worse than j that of any other professional man, j but patients given to the pastime of j scrutinising prescriptions, convinced, | moreover, that the doctor’s scrawl is I designed to keep secret the contents of I these documents, are more likely to i attribute their failure to decipher what is written to the doctor’s illegij bility than to their own ignorance of i dog Latin and pharmaceutical termij nology. It is, after all, a commonplace that in the clearest and most beautiful script unfamiliar words are more difficult tc. read than those which - are familiar, and the average prescription teems with words which, even when spelt out in full, are beyond the, range of the average layman’s vocabulary.”