Photo of the packaging of four medicines registered in the UK, showing their Product Licence Numbers and symbols denoting if they are<unk>  Only Medicine (POM) or Pharmacy Medicine (P) A<unk>  (also<unk>  medication or<unk>  medicine) is a pharmaceutical<unk>  that legally requires a medical<unk>  to be dispensed. In contrast, over-the-counter<unk> s can be obtained without a<unk> . The reason for this difference in substance control is the potential scope of misuse, from<unk>  abuse to practicing medicine without a license and without sufficient education. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what constitutes a<unk> . In North America, ℞, usually printed as "Rx", is used as an abbreviation of the word<unk> ". It is a contraction of the Latin word "recipe" (an imperative form of "recipere") meaning "take".<unk> s are often dispensed together with a monograph (in Europe, a Patient Information Leaflet or PIL) that gives detailed information about the<unk> . The use of<unk> s has been increasing since the 1960s.
Prescription drug
Proprietary drug
Cold medicine
Disaster medicine
Travel medicine
Domestic medicine
Designer drug
Biological agent