From Mr L. W. J. Chapman, MRPharmS
SIR,-If modern university courses do not equip graduates to dispense extemporaneously, then the Society has a duty to protect both the public and pharmacists by issuing a ruling that will prevent accidents. If the current generation of pharmacists are incompetent in this matter, they should be forbidden to dispense extemporaneously until they can supply a certificate of competence in this field; moreover, a careful practical training will not be easily acquired in these days of commercial factory packs - sic transit gloria venificorum.
If a pharmacist cannot dispense extemporaneously, who can? I suppose it is a dispensing physician, who dispenses his own familiar nostrums.
Should the Society decide to ban extemporaneous dispensing, then it should also acquaint the appropriate medical bodies with the decision, so that physicians do not expect the unallowable from pharmacists and embarrass us.
Leonard Chapman
Toronto, Canada