uestion which we do not proper r the original prescription, or a v. Crittenden, 4 McLean, 300. with the intention of revealing the secrets of the testator.1 If reading aloud to others a written instrument constitutes a publication, why is not a recompounding of a prescription indiscriminately for the public a similar act? It is no answer to this that the public are not made aware thereby of the formula, for perhaps even the patient and owner does not understand it himself. This is a contingency subsequent to the wrong committed, and of which the depositary can take no advantage. The only question to be decided in his behalf is, whether or not he has diverted the deposit from its original purpose of being used by one person, and surrendered it to be used by many. § 206. Whatever has been said upon the legal aspect of prescriptions when in the hands of apothecaries, applies necessarily only to such as are original. All formulæ which are to be found in the dispensatory, may be considered as res communes. Whoever may have invented them, they are now, from universal adoption, become public property. In England, formerly, the property in a Latin grammar was said to reside in the king; but more lately courts have held it to be a subject publici juris. The same rule will apply to ancient prescriptions, which may be considered as public property in every sense. Without desiring, therefore, to strain principles of law beyond their proper limits, nor to create problems for the mere purpose of discussing them, we have endeavored to investigate this vexed question in a judicial and not a professional spirit, and upon reviewing the principles of equity that have engaged our attention while examining "Si quis tabulas testamenti apud se depositas pluribus praesentibus legit, ait Labeo, depositi actioni recte de tabulis agi posse. Ego arbitror, et injuriarum agi posse, si hoc animo recitatum testamentum est quibusdam praesentibus, ut judicia secreta ejus qui testatus est, divulgarentur." Digest. lib. XVI. tit. III. 24. it, we think it will be made manifest that the interests of physicians and apothecaries are, in this particular, reciprocal and not antagonistic. What is chiefly needed to protect the rights of all parties, and to provide for the public safety, is a system of rational and uniform legislation throughout the United States upon the profession of pharmacy. Strange as it may seem in a country where so many law-making bodies are each annually producing a volume of enactments, intended to meet all present and future necessities of, or to supply all past deficiencies in, municipal government— strange as it may seem, a science so intimately related to human health, and the preservation of life, as that of pharmacy, has as yet received legislative recognition in but a very few States. On such subjects as poisons or alcoholic liquors, some statutes have indeed been passed prescribing the duties of apothecaries in their sale, but beyond this point State legislatures have not generally ventured, thus ignoring pharmacy as a science intimately allied to the practice of medicine, and recognizing it only as a traffic in drugs for commercial purposes. nade manifest that the interest! eded to protect the rights of d of medicine, and recognizing it Experts, must base opinion upon the entire evidence, can not express opinions where facts are controverted, no precise rule as to their qualification, and pronounce upon symptoms, but not the point at issue, Evidence in cases of alleged insanity, Fees not a salary, under the civil law, in United States, 145-7 must state reasons of their opinions, 147 148 149 may be asked as to analogous facts, can not read from professional books in court, but may refer to them, may express opinions upon an admitted state of facts, 150 153 154 164 167 170 facts, 174 159 34 36 35-39 40 |