Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1897 — SIX THOUSAND DOSES. [ARTICLE]

SIX THOUSAND DOSES.

The Physician Did Not Know the t trength of the Drag. “It isn’t always safe to base your estimates of value on size and quantity,” said a Washington physician to a reporter. “I was convinced of that when I was the resident physician at one of the largest hospitals in town and waa younger than I ant now. On one occasion the senior attending physician came to me and said that he wished 1 would secure a certain drug which he said was then being used with remarkable success in some of the principal hospitals in Europe. 1 asked him how much 1 should get, as It was something I had never heard of before. “ ‘Oh, just get a little; It’s very powerful; an ounce or two would be enough, I should think.’ “Well, I telephoned to a wholesale druggist and gave an order for an ounce. A couple of days afterward the druggist sent me word that there wasn't as much as an ounce of the drug in the whole United States, so I told* hi in. to get me all he could. ..During the course of the week he seat me thAe dfifour drams. The stuff had a name jin Inverse ratio to the quantity, a half-dozen’ chemical phrases linked together with hyphens, but in direct ratio to its strength. I remember the little phial cost an even $29, and when I came to investigate I found that a dose was such a sjuall fraction that I had just 6,000 doses on hand. That bottle stared me in the face as long as I remained At ti\e hospital until it came to be a veritable nightmare. When 1 left I think there were still 5,980 doses on hand, and I shouldn't wonder if that supply Is sufficient to last through the next century.”