MORAL STORIES

A DISPENSER'S DILEMMA

Mr. Mathew was a pharmacist, managing his own medical store dispensing medicines prescribed by doctors. His drug store was near a large hospital in a busy part of the city. He was brought up in a very religious Christian family but became an atheist later.

One morning, a girl in very poor dress came running to his store with a prescription for a medicine. She wanted the drug to save her father who was lying in a serious critical state in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

Mr. Mathew examined the prescription. As it was written in a hurry, it was not legible. From the girl he gathered a clear idea about her father’s disease but the name of the prescribed medicine could not be ascertained. After much effort, he interpreted the inscription as a particular drug for injection. He gave an ampoule of the drug to the girl. She paid its price from a bag of coins and ran with the drug to the hospital.

After a while, suddenly it came to his mind that the drug he dispensed should not be given to the patient as it would aggravate his disease and may even cause his death. He could now remember the correct name of the prescribed drug. Its name was similar to that of the drug he dispensed but had the opposite action. His conscience accused him for his error. He wanted to save the patient at any cost. He tried to contact the hospital by phone but he could not get a connection. He started his car to rush to the hospital to confess his error, prevent the injection and save the patient. For the first time in several years, he cried to God to save the poor patient.

Suddenly he saw the girl running towards the store, crying . He was totally upset as he thought that his drug would have killed her father and she was coming to accuse him.

But the girl had a different story to tell. As she was speeding towards the hospital, she struck against a stone and fell down. The glass ampoule with the drug fell on the stone and was broken into pieces. The drug was lost. Being very poor, she did not have sufficient money to pay for another ampoule. So she requested him to give another ampoule on loan as it was essential to save her father’s life. In tears, she promised to pay the money later.

Mr. Mathew thanked God for answering his prayer so soon though he had been denying God’s grace for several years. He gave the correct medicine and carried the girl to the hospital in his car. With the timely treatment, the patient recovered fully. The pharmacist was totally transformed. He paid the money for the complete treatment of the poor man.

God uses similar incidents to kindle the flame of transformation. The conversion of Saul to Paul followed a fall and a call from the Saviour {Acts 9: 1-19}.

Jesus called Zacchaeus from a sycomore tree. The unexpected encounter with Jesus transformed him totally. When Zacchaeus proclaimed his penance, Jesus said, “Salvation has come to this house today” {Luke 19: 9}.

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This is story No. 133 in this site. Please click ‘older posts’ at bottom of page to read previous stories in this site.

By: Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India.