The following are the regulations in force in the Dispensing Department of the Army and Navy Co-operative Society (Limited), 105 Victoria Street, London, reprinted here through the courtesy of Mr. L. Johnson, manager of the department.

Hours

From 8.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. ; Saturdays, 3 p.m. ; after which times extra pay commences. Assistants are requested to be at their posts by 8.45 a.m. punctually. Each dispenser is to dust and arrange his own bottles, and to be ready to commence dispensing at 9 o'clock.

Copiers

When entering a prescription to observe the doses of the drugs, and if in excess of the Pharmacopoeia dose to notify the head of the room ; also when the name on the prescription differs from that on the order, both names must be entered, and each day to enter the memos, from the 'Prescription Note-book.'

Personal Responsibility

Dispensers are by law held liable for any serious mistake ; special attention is therefore called to the following instructions : The prescription, or a correct copy, to be in front of the dispenser, who should first consider the doses of the drugs. Each ingredient to be weighed or measured separately, and the bottle from which it was taken put back to its place at once. Read the label as the bottle or package is taken for use, and never fail, on returning it to its place, to see again that you have taken the right bottle or package. Reread prescription immediately it is finished to make doubly sure that it has been correctly dispensed, and label each container with the prescription number before submitting to checker. The weighing or measuring of all poisons should be checked- if for a number of powders the bulk to be checked, and then weighed separately- the formula requiring them should be shown to the assistant called upon to check, who must initial the order against the quantity so entered. It is particularly requested that this regulation be strictly adhered to. Non-observance renders the dispenser liable to instant dismissal.

This applies to making preparations as well as dispensing.

Notes of excipients and other memos., including size of cachets used, are to be entered in a book kept for that purpose.

For all medicines for external use, or not to be taken, excepting non-poisonous gargles, mouth washes and sprays, special poison-bottles are to be used. Dispensing-bottles being liable to vary in capacity in reputed sizes, dispensers are to use bottles of correct capacity, the attention of the head of the room to be drawn to any discrepancies. Each dispenser shall check his own scales every morning and verify the weights on the first Thursday in each month ; any discrepancy must be reported to the head of the room. He will be held responsible for the condition in which the bottles and jars are kept in the section allotted to him, anything missing or broken to be reported at once and entered on the order slate. All prescriptions are to be taken from the rack in the order they are arranged, and no fresh order shall be taken until the one in hand has been executed, unless such cannot be forthwith completed. Care must be taken to see that the number quoted on the order agrees with the name in the register ; no alteration of an incorrect number to be made without reference to head of room.

In dispensing foreign prescriptions, the Continental system is to be adopted.

Pills, Cachets, and Suppositories.- All ingredients to be weighed by a qualified dispenser, who must write out the formula in full on a separate slip, that it may be verified by the checker.