SUPERIOR COLLECTION SERVICE FOR DOCTORS Realizing the difficulties you encounter in making prompt collection for services rendered, we have organized a highly specialized department confined exclusively to making collections for Doctors. The underlying principles are the outgrowth of some 13 years' success in the general collection business. There is no more reason why the Doctor should not collect his accounts promptly than the tradesman. The average Doctor, however, is so engrossed in his calling that the commercial phase is apt to be slighted. You can now GET THE MONEY, PROMPTLY, WITHOUT WORRY, WORK NOR EXPENSE by merely listing with us all of your old, stale or bad accounts. At no expense to you, we make the collections in a thorough, careful, diplomatic, tho firm, manner and you get money that, doubtless, you would otherwise never have seen. You are really losing enough to pay us several times over for our services, by letting such matter drag. Your brain and your time are needed by those who DO pay up. Let us take off of your shoulders the responsibility of collections from those who DON'T pay up. This is a fair, square business proposition that you can't afford to slight, so write us for full particulars, to-day. To prove that there is nothing mystifying or unfair about our relations we herewith print a copy of our agreement: "We herewith hand you the following accounts, which are correct, and which you may retain for six months, with longer time on accounts under promise of payment. Commission on money paid either party is to be 33%. We will report in writing on the fifth of each month all money paid direct to us." "In consideration thereof, The Publishers Adjusting Association agrees to strive persistently and intelligently to make said collections at no expense to us, and to issue statement on the fifteenth of each month, provided the above mentioned report from the undersigned has been received." PUBLISHERS ADJUSTING ASSOCIATION, Kansas City, Mo., U. S. A. Medical Department, Desk F, Midland Building as I have seen it stated anywhere, by certain American university students interested in international affairs and gathered recently at a national conference. The statement took the form of a resolution in these terms: Recent events have shown that the lives of American and other neutral citizens and American and other neutral commerce on the high seas cannot be made secure by America's taking part in a war in which both sides are in some measure straining or violating the law and support an interpretation of law which would leave those rights without due protection in the future. We respectfully submit that the protection of American rights necessitates (1) The development and reform of existing international law, which involves : (2) An international legislative body for the framing of such law, (3) An international court for its just interpretation, and, (4) An international arrangement for the due execution of the Court's decision by such combination of economic or military measures as may be most effective. 1 That is very nearly the whole case. Will the young men have to come forward and teach the old men that war can be averted, and how to do it? War is too silly for grown and supposedly intelligent men to indulge in, and to permit. Might as well permit piracy, and make burglary legal. How were these evils mitigated? War should be put in the same category. Acknowledgments. The Radical Operation for Cancer of the Pyloric End of the Stomach. Procedures following Nephrectomy. By Wm. J. Mayo, Rochester, Minn.-Causes of Failure in Gastro-enterostomies. Uterin Prolapse with By Mortality of the Western Hemisphere. Publisht by Nematodes and Their Relationships. By N. A. Cobb, An Emergency Medicin for the Soldier. By Hiram Typhoid Fever. By Paul Preble. Supplement No. 23 to Public Health Reports, United States Public Health Service, Washington, D. C. with an instrument you can depend upon to give an acourate reading. Faught's Pocket Aneroid Blood Pres sure Apparatus is the most dependable on the market. Mechanically perfect, accurate, simple, easy to use and 1an be applied in a moment. May be carried in the pocket. Price, including Faught's Blood Pressure Primer. 120 pages, $22.50 net. May be purchased on partial-payment plan. Money promptly returned if not satisfied after thirty days' trial. Several blood pressure instruments, mechanically perfect, but slightly shopworn, at about one-half usual price. PLUTO The various forms of DYSPEPSIA chronic intestinal stasis, and ob- PLUTO A glance at the analysis, which will be sent on request, The evidence of a host of practitioners conclusively proves that Pluto is uniformly dependable in action and gratifying in results. Samples, clinical data, literature interestingly descriptive of hygienic methods of bottling Pluto and the acknowledged advantages of America's famous Spa, promptly supplied by French Lick Springs Hotel Co. FRENCH LICK, INDIANA The knowledge that a man can use is the only real knowledge; the only knowledge that has life and growth in it and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like raindrops off the stones.-FROUDE. The Medical World C. F. TAYLOR, M.D., Editor and Publisher. J. C. ROMMEL, M.D., Associate Editors. E. S. TAYLOR, Business Manager. Entered at the Philadelphia Postoffice as Second-Class Matter. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: To any part of the United HOW TO REMIT: For their own protection we advise If you want your subscription stopt at expiration of the scriber's pleasure that the subscription be con- Pay no money to agents unless publisher's receipt is given. "THE MEDICAL WORLD" 1520 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, Pa. No. 10 Continued Activity by the Druggists. That the druggists have no intention of discontinuing their efforts to pass laws to prevent physicians from dispensing remedies is evident by their public utterances in the recent annual convention of the National Association of Retail Druggists, held at Minneapolis, Minn., August 30th to September 3d. The ideas of the convention were summarized in the N. A. R. D. Journal for September 9th as follows: More vigorously than ever before the association has gone on record in support of the fundamental principle, pharmacy for pharmacists; and it has determined to push zealously the legal restriction of all poachers on the domain of the pharmacist; it has decided to take the initiative in the preparation of laws which will safeguard his rights. Maintaining its position of firm op position to attempted encroachments, it will assume the aggressive against all more or less strongly intrenched invaders. Not alone in the way of state legislation will this aggressive action be directed, but a fight will be made to end the discrimination against real pharmacy in the enforcement of the Harrison antinarcotic law. Therefore all that we have said on the subject in previous issues stands good today. At their recent convention they passed numerous resolutions as a basis for their activity for the coming year. From these resolutions we derive the following information. It is their intention to protest against Treasury Decision 2213, and have instructed a committee to institute a test case on the matter in court. The Treasury Decision forbids refilling of any prescription containing narcotics, in any quantity. their contention that prescriptions for narcotics within the excepted quantities named in the Harrison law can be refilled. It is They seem to have gotten quite enough of the Harrison law, for they disapproved of a resolution to extend the scope of the Harrison law to include other drugs. They recommend the passage of state laws in harmony with the national law. To this we will continue to agree. It has been our expressed contention that such a course should be pursued. And accordingly we have vigorously opposed all state bills that were not in consonance with the federal law. We welcome the aid of the druggists' association in this laudable undertaking. The druggists, tho, will oppose the placing of the enforcement of the state laws in the hands of the state board of health and sections that would favor dispensing by doctors. The druggists, however, intend to make. a strong fight for the passage of bills to prevent any person but a registered pharmacist dispensing drugs. An effort was made to pass such a bill in Connecticut last winter, but our activities prevented it, and a good narcotic bill was passed instead. We must continue alert to prevent any bills being enacted that would restrict the phy sician's activities. It will be as necessary in the future, as in the past, to watch the druggists' activities at legislative assemblies. The National Narcotic Law Made Plain. Under the national narcotic law narcotic drugs can be purchased only on special order forms supplied by the collector of internal revenue. The question still arises thruout the United States as to what may be legally dispensed under the Harrison law without a record being kept and also what records are required. As will be seen by referring to Section 2 of that law, printed in our January issue, pages 2 and 3, physicians are not required to keep any records of their dispensing to patients. It is there stated: Nothing contained in this section shall apply(a) To the dispensing or distribution of any of the aforesaid drugs to a patient by a physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon registered under this act in the course of his professional practise only; provided, that such physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon shall keep a record of all such drugs dispensed or distributed, showing the amount dispensed or distributed, the date and the name and address of the patient to whom such drugs are dispensed or distributed, except such as may be dispensed or distributed to a patient upon whom such physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon shall personally attend; This paragraph distinctly permits physicians to dispense remedies to patients without keeping a record thereof, and this. has been admitted by opponents of dispensing doctors. This is the law, and the internal revenue commissioner's ruling that physicians must keep a record is not in consonance therewith, and he apparently does not consider his office able to enforce it, for we read recently that a physician in a large city was arrested by the internal revenue department for giving in a false inventory of narcotic drugs received. It was stated that the physician was ordered to give an inventory of narcotics received during a certain three months' time. The law provides for such requirement by the internal revenue bureau. According to the information we received, the physician's inventory stated, under oath, that only 5 or 6 grains were received, whereas the bureau had evidence that he had purchased some thousands of grains or tablets. He was arrested for perjury. Apparently nothing was said about his failure to keep records, and he very likely did not keep any records, if he received many tablets surreptitiously. Nevertheless, the ruling of the com missioner still stands, calling upon physicians to keep records of all narcotics dispensed by them. At the meeting of the Mississippi Pharmaceutic Association early in June, at Jackson, Miss., according to the Memphis, Tenn., Commercial Appeal, it was the consensus of belief that the spirit of the federal narcotic law means to place the responsibility for overstepping its bounds on the prescribing physicians, and not on the druggist who follows his prescription, and that the departmental regulations apparently go beyond the spirit of the law. So that it is acknowledged that the burdens are to be placed on the doctor, and the rulings of the commissioner of internal revenue are not in accord with the law. Physicians who are in the habit of dispensing narcotics by dissolving them in water will be required to record such dispensing, even tho the amount of water used be sufficient to make a solution dilute enough to come under the exemption clause. This matter has been considered by the_commissioner, and his ruling, as given in Treasury Decision 2172, is as follows: Exemption of certain preparations: The exemp tions provided in section 6 of this law are held to apply only to United States Pharmacopeia standard preparations or to remedies prepared under private formula, such as are usually carried in stock by druggists and dispensed without prescriptions, and not to pseudopreparations or remedies prepared, prescribed or sold on account of the narcotic drug contained therein. Treasury Decision 2213 states that the word "preparations" as generally used and understood means ready-made or prepared medicins, and the word "remedies" means that which cures or is efficacious in a specific disease or diseases under all conditions, while the term "prescription" is the written directions or recipe of a physician for the compounding or preparing of a medicin and directions for its use to meet the existing conditions in the case of a particular patient. It is therefore apparent that the exemptions in section 6 of the act, as interpreted in Treasury Decision 2172,* relating to preparations and remedies" containing not more than the specified quantities of the drugs enumerated, do not apply to "prescriptions" written by registered physicians calling for any quantity of the naroctic drug, unless such prescription is written for a "preparation or remedy" prepared in accordance with the United States Pharmacopeia, National Formulary or other formula, or for a remedy or preparation' prepared under private or proprietary formula, carried in stock by a dealer, which may be dis"prescription." pensed without a 44 Every "prescription," therefore, containing a narcotic drug in any quantity, with the exemptions noted, must have indicated thereon the name and address of the patient, the name and address of the * Given above. |