PRESCRIPTION, in medicine, a statement or formula, usually in writing and made by a physician, containing directions for the prepara tion and use of medicines or remedies for a patient. Formerly prescriptions were written altogether in Latin, but in this country and in Scotland, English is now chiefly used for the directions, Latin being reserved for the names of ingredients. In England both prescriptions and directions are still usually written in Latin. In prescribing the physician may, from the na ture of the case, use an officinal or extempo raneous preparation. Prescriptions are now much more simple than formerly. The parts of a regular prescription are four, as follows: The superscription, with the date, name of patient and the sign R, an abbreviation of recipe (take); (2) the inscription, that is, the body of the formula, containing names and quantities of ingredients, the former in Latin, the latter according to apothecaries' measure or the metric system ; (3) the subscription directions for the apothecary; (4) the signa ture, comprising directions to the Patient re garding the use of the medicines or remedies prescribed, and followed by the signature (sometimes initials) of the physician. In
former times, when frequently very complicated. prescriptions were used, every prescription was supposed to consist of four classes of in gredients. The most active of these is called the base; the adjuvant is meant to promote the action of the first; the corrigent or corrective is' intended to modify that action ; and to these is added the exciptent, also called the vehicle for the purpose of imparting to the whole a form or consistency convenient and agreeable for use. Consult Barton, W. M., 'Therapeutic Index and Prescription Writing Practice' (Boston 1917) ; Maitland, L., 'How to Read and Write Prescriptions' (Chicago 1914) ; Mann, M. D., 'Manual of Prescription Writing> (6th ed., New York 1906) Prichard, A. H., 'Practical Prescribing with Clinical Notes) (Oxford 1914) ; Swan, J. M., 'Prescription Writing and Formulary' (Philadelphia 1910) ; Wall, U., 'Prescriptions) (4th ed., Saint Louis 1917).