seems impractical, but a delegate body is possible.

All the preliminaries for the next Pharmacopoeia are completed, sub-committees organized and the prospects are good for a completion of the work in much less time than that of the preceding. The eighth revision was accomplished under a number of difficulties, and before it was definitely decided this should be the legal standard.

The National Formulary is also being revised and much nearer completion. This book also became authority and is being subjected to very careful revision. Unfortunately death has left a vacancy in both committees through the demise of Professor Hallberg, which it will be somewhat difficult to fill.

Prosperity of the South.

Throughout the South Thanksgiving day was deserving of more general observation than ever before. The Manufacturers' Record has been collating the figures and marshalling the facts.

With its farms and plantations yielding this year products worth, as conservatively esti mated, between $2,600,000,000 and $2,700,000,000, our Baltimore contemporary insists the South is in a frame of mind fit for Thanksgiving. The cotton crop, with its seed, promises to approach $1,000,000,000 in value. As interesting as that is, it is, perhaps, even more interesting in view of the thought in so many quarters of cotton as the one great crop of the South, to note that the aggregate value of corn, wheat and oats in the South this year is between $700,000,000 and $800,000,000, prices for grain ruling better in the South than in other sections, and that tobacco and rice will add another $100,000,000 toward the total, with its values for livestock, poultry, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, hay, sugar and miscel laneous products easily aggregating $700,000,000. The exhibit made this year by the grain crops is especially satisfactory.

Every Southern State shows an increase in corn over 1909, the largest in any one State being 58,843,000 bushels in Texas. There was an increase in wheat in every Southern State, the largest being 13,730,000 in Texas, but there were slight decreases in oats in Florida and Georgia, and the largest increase in any Southern State was 13,381,000 bushels in Texas.

"Gratifying as is this exhibit, it must not be forgotten that the South is not doing in grain growing according to its potentialities in that respect. It could with comparative ease double its grain output," says The Record. This year the boys' corn clubs of Texas made a magnificent showing at the State Fair. Next year the boys should make a greater showing.

Twenty years ago the South was poverty stricken, deep in debt and just recovering from the devastating effects of a suicidal war. To

day the South is rich and prosperous and the future is roseate.

The druggists sharing in this prosperity must be relatively benefited. No other division of States has made such strides in manufacture, and the increase of population is far in excess of any other section.

We have endeavored to be of service to our readers and the pharmacists of the South, and in extending our very best wishes for the holidays we hope not to be forgotten in the renewals of the year to come.

LEGISLATION.

Every one has a part to do in legislative matters, and the time for sessions in a number of States is fast approaching. Have you responded to the call of your association? If not, do not delay further. They have doubtless outlined what there is for you to do, provided you expect them to be successful. The latest news of interest along this line is that the Illinois Itinerant Vending Law has been upheld. This regulation attaches a tax of $100 per month; though few associations will at once risk a measure carrying a tax as high, it evidences that the people see the injustice and danger of such methods of selling. Progress is being made. Let every one do his part and a fair measure of success may reasonably be predicted.

SUCCESS IS A MATTER OF PERSONALITY.

Success is a matter of personality. Personality counts for more than talent every time. Many men of mediocre talent achieve great success and become great, while many men of great talent become failures.

You have only to look about you to see the truth of this statement. And the reason why men of talent fail to win success (nine times out of ten at least) is because they lack personality.

Because success is a matter of personality every young man in the country has an opportunity to win success, for every one can develop his personality. It makes little difference whether you are a college man or not, although it must be admitted that a college man can succeed easier.

Teachers and instructors can develop your mind, athletic instructors can develop your body, but you must develop your personality yourself.

A man can develop his personality by developing character, by good associates, by right living and right thinking, by overcoming deficiencies.

If you find it hard to tell the truth, for instance, you must practice truth telling. Every one has certain weaknesses. Every one knows what his particular weaknesses are. Most of them can be overcome by concentrated effort. I believe the college is the most effective

organ society has created to increase the efficiency of the race. This idea should be borne in mind: The mind should be trained with just as much care as is given to the body. I heartily believe in college athletics, but the tendency is to give more time to training the body than to training the mind.

Life at college is very much the life in the world. In fact, college life is the first stage in real life. If a man makes good there-I mean, makes good in good in the broad sense-he makes good in after life. If he is honest, courteous and worth knowing there he is almost certain to be honest, courteous and, irrespective of whether or not he shows merit in his studies, worth knowing ten or twenty years. later.-Governor Harmon, Ohio.

only because of my own connection with that department of the trade, but because the pharmaceutical products form the center or nucleus around which the business of the pharmacist

While in many localities the sundry lines, soda fountain, books, magazines and stationery, together with patent medicines constitute the large bulk of the business, the average druggist conducts his store ostensibly at least for the purpose of filling prescriptions and supplying the community with such other household remedies and sick room supplies as are in general demand.

In view of the enormous growth of department stores that can afford to handle toilet articles and many of the accessories that have formed part of the sundry stock of the average drug store, many clear-headed and far-seeing pharmacists are putting forth the cry "Back to the prescription counter." While the phrase itself indicated a backward movement. it is in reality a progression, for all advances in the world's history are made in cycles, which is best illustrated by an ascending spiral. Through the cycles of the ages we apparently come back

"It is a wise merchant who knows just the moment when a line of goods or an article has reached a point where it should be moved regardless of price."

"It is not what there is in business, but what you get out of it that counts.

"The man who has daily inured himself to the habit of concentrated attention, energetic volition and self-denial in unnecessary things, will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.'

"Nothing is sweet except you give the price of honest toil. Thou shalt eat thy bread by the sweat of thy brow.' The probability of good character is enhanced by honest and industrious work. Only those things are appreciated that come as a result of effort."

"Imagination is the supreme gift of the gods, and the degree of its possession is the measure of any man's advantage over circumstances— the measure of his clutch on success.

existing twenty-five, fifty or one hundred years ago, that the phrases "Back to Christ" in religious circles, "Back to the Land" in ecomonic discussions, and "Back to the prescription counter" in our own business seem to represent the actual conditions, but a more careful examination of the real facts in the case indicate that we only go back to corresponding conditions, but have really attained a higher plane.

Development in all lines of business leads to specialization, and this to economy in production and efficiency in professional endeavor. To the calm judgment it is unreasonable to expect the public to pay a profit on mere mertion and the training necessary to conduct a chandising that will compensate for the educafirst-class pharmacy and which will inspire confidence of the medical profession and of the intelligent public.

On the other hand, it is equally unjust to expect this professional service on the basis of ordinary commercial profits. Taking it for granted then that pharmaceutical products are the keynote to success of the pharmacist, let us examine the pharmaceutical situation at the present time.

No inquiry into this question would be complete without consideration of the doctor as a prime factor. The fact that many evils have crept into the practice of medicine does not militate against the fact that all demand for medical supplies properly begins with and depends upon the physician whose reputation and success follows the employment of the proper use of the implements of his profession.

We will always have the dispensing and pre

scribing physicians, but the dispensing will be limited to the country village where no drug store exists, so long as the pharmacist devotes his first effort to increasing his efficiency as a pharmacist and his reputation for exactness in the filling of prescriptions. And right here I wish to deprecate the dispensing of supplies by physicians convenient to good pharmacists, on the same ground that it seems to me a mistake for the pharmacist to neglect his pharmacy for merchandising. The careful physician has his hands full with the diagnosis and the proper selection of the remedy. He will be the better physician who does not spend a portion of his energy in putting up his prescriptions, but, as Grover Cleveland wisely said, "It is a condition, not a theory that confronts us." How shall we meet the condition? Certainly not by throwing the theory to the winds, but by keeping the correct theory of practice ever before us as a headlight. While seeking a livelihood by the most honorable means at our command, let us constantly hold in view the ideal in which we believe.

If you find a doctor dispensing his own remedies in your immediate neighborhood, do not make matters worse by counter prescribing to his patients, but endeavor to carry in stock the goods which the doctor is using, let him know that you have them ready for emergencies and he will soon find that there is less loss and therefore greater economy in buying supplies from his local druggist than ordering in quantities perhaps larger than he can use, while the goods are fresh.

In the next step, we will find the doctor writing prescriptions and sending the patient to the pharmacist instead of going there himself. Gain his confidence by the assurance on your part that he can obtain in his prescriptions the exact grade of goods that he has been using or prefers in his own dispensing. In any condition in life, when we find ourselves in an unfavorable position, it is rarely possible to restore ideal conditions in one step. Seldom in history has any great reform been accomplished in a sudden revolution, and even in these exceptions the reaction has been worse than the original state.

For the time being we must sell the dispensing doctor at closer margin of profit than we have a right to expect on his prescriptions, but if it leads to the ideal of universal prescription writing, it is the proper course to pursue. Now, on the other hand, what is the relation of the retail drug trade to the jobber? It is true that in these days of economy of production and distribution that the jobber is being eliminated in many lines, and as economy is effected the modern method can but be approved, but a more than superficial examination into this matter reveals the fact that those lines of merchandise which are being sold di

rect from the manufacturer to the retailer, or even to the consumer, are uncomplicated or perhaps the manufacturer produces but a single item.

In the case of pharmaceuticals, however, and there are other lines involving large assortments, it is doubtful if the jobber can ever be successfully eliminated, certainly not until the railroad and express lobby lose their influence and power at Washington, and transportation rates on small lots are materially reduced. In effecting a saving in the purchase of supplies direct from the manufacturer an over stock is the inevitable result, and the loss in the end. has been found to exceed the small margin of profit on which the legitimate jobber handles ordinary supplies.

It is true that the system of rebates by manufacturers to jobbers and their salesmen afford. a larger margin for handling a certain class of goods. These are foisted on the pharmacist who, if he accepts them, must in turn use them on the prescriptions of the doctor who does not know the goods, and eventually becomes dissatisfied with the results of prescription writing. The pharmacist should demand of the jobber the same conscientious execution of his orders as the physician expects of the pharmacist, so we see the same element enters into the relation of the pharmacist to the jobber as the doctor to the pharmacist.

In plain words, it is the element of honesty and in the last analysis our ideal may be expressed in the old saying, "Honesty is the best policy." It is the only policy that will win out in the long run, and in spite of the dishonesty in the trade relations, in politics and in government, it does not require an overly keen perception or prevision to recognize the coming of the dawn of that day in the not distant future when the leaders in our government and in our business will be the men who would rather be right than be President.

THE RETAIL DRUGGIST AND HIS PROBLEMS AS VIEWED BY AN OUTSIDER.

A. O. Martineau says in N. A. R. D. Notes: The young man who decides upon pharmacognosy, theoretical and practical pharmacy has a difficult row to hoe.

First of all, he has to study for a number of years, has to be conversant in such subjects as materia medica, pharmacognosy, theoretical and practical pharmacy, chemistry and botany.

Even though this young man gets his degree from his college and stands at the head of his alma mater, he still has to go before the State board for his final examination. Even though he should pass the State board with a mark that may be perfect, the most essential feature of his entire education has been almost entirely neglected-the method of merchandis