ing both his knowledge and the goods that he may have to sell after he becomes either an employee or an employer.

The retail druggist occupies a dual position. He is both a professional and a business man. Being a professional man, the business man is ofttimes neglected. If he becomes an employer or proprietor, he buys a lot of goods such as patent medicines, toilet goods, stationery, candies, cigars, etc., without any knowledge of how he should proceed to sell them and that is one reason for the mediocre success of many retail druggists. If he becomes an employee. and should happen to get in with some one who has not had experience in merchandising, he gets into the same rut that hundreds of others have gotten into simply through the lack of the training that I have already mentioned.

One of our most successful business men was asked by a friend of his what he would advise as the proper course for a young man to take to achieve a success and he replied as follows:

"Any boy on the doorstep of a career must not forget that no man is original, none a law unto himself. There is no such thing as a tub on its own bottom-it is ever a borrowed bottom. To have ideas a man must scratch him

self like a match against another man. Sparks

come only from sharp collision and brisk contact, never of themselves. Next to meeting men, read books. Books for wisdom, men for collecting a flow, a dash, a vivacity of spirit. Meet men. Dress well. To mount in life you must meet and deal with men, especially men in your line of trade. Also you are to rise or fall by men's impressions of you.'

Many retail druggists fail to take advantage of their opportunities. For instance, many of

interview

them will not allow salesmen to them, will not in many instances even listen to the story which the salesman may have to tell. They seem to forget that the salesman of today is a man who has to be thoroughly versed in the line of merchandising he represents in order to be a success and that they might get many valuable pointers if they would only give the salesman a few minutes of their time, and in return would probably get a few ideas which would be the means of their making many dollars just through a pointer which from the face of it would not seem to amount to much.

A buyer for one of the largest retail drug stores in Washington, D. C., and one of the city's most successful men, said he was a friend of the traveling men, because they were the boys that kept him up-to-date.

CANDY WINDOW DISPLAYS. While this article from the Confectioners' Journal deals largely with a Thanksgiving window, it suggests ideas for the holiday season.

A good Thanksgiving window may be arranged by the use of some farm products to give the proper festival atmosphere. Get a sheaf or two of wheat and, separating it, stand the wheat along at the back of the window for a low background. If wheat or oats or buckwheat or other grain is not available, get stalks of corn and weave a background out of that, setting a few yellow pumpkins in the corners. Cover the floor of the window also with straw or something of the sort and in the middle stand a small table. For a small window a doll's table may be used and the larger the window the larger the table, the main thing being to keep the proportions right. Drape the table with white, like a table cloth, and upon it place some boxes of your best candy, some with tops off, others closed. Arrange them to show the style of the package and of the contents to the best advantage. Place a large card in a conspicuous place, the card to read, "No Thanksgiving Table Complete Without a Box of These Chocolates." Put price tags on some of the boxes, of course.

There is much going home and going visiting on Thanksgiving day, and it is almost an invariable rule that the traveling parties take more or less candy with them for the friends play of pounds and half pounds of the best at the end of the journey. An attractive dismixed chocolates will appeal to people the week preceding Thanksgiving. This display should show the classiest goods and it should bear a card reading something like this: "Take a pound box along for the home folks," or "Put one of these in your bag, 60 cents, or "You want these for the family dinner," or "Make your sweetheart your wife or keep Thanksgiving box of these chocolates. your wife your sweetheart by taking her a

It is time now to lay in a supply of horehound drops for the winter. Nothing sells better than the so-called "Old Fashioned Horehound Drops" during the weather when they will not run together. One of the commonest the keg over in the window and let the drops and casiest methods of window display is to tip run out on the window floor, placing a lot of filled sacks around with a "5 cents a bag" card stuck in the middle. A variation of this plan will attract increased attention. Such a change may be made by using a wheelbarrow in the window display. Secure a small sized barrow from the hardware store, borrowing it for the occasion. See that it is scrubbed clean and then fill it with the horehound drops and tip it part way over in the window, as if it were being tipped to dump out the load. It should be set so that a part of the load will remain in the wheelbarrow and part run out on the window floor. The filled sacks and the price card must not be omitted. Another variation may be made in the following manner: Take a good sized keg and set it in the window

on supports of some sort so that it will stand up perhaps a foot from the floor. Put into the head next to the lower edge of the chime a big molasses faucet. Using sticky fly paper to hold them, arrange a stream of the horehound drops apparently flowing out of the faucet. The drops can be stuck to the paper in such a way

that the paper will not show. A paper sack placed under the faucet appears to catch the flow. Other filled sacks are arranged around the window and a price card placed on them. The name "Old Fashioned Horehound Drops," should be shown prominently. "Fresh from the new barrel, 5 cents a one-fourth pound sack," makes a good sign.

It is now time to push cough drops. You are safe in buying freely at this time of the year, and the more variety you have in these goods the more you will sell. The dealer who gets the reputation for having all kinds gets the trade on all kinds. There are some people who think that no cough drop but a certain one will stop their cough. The man who has all kinds gets the trade of these people on cough drops and on other goods as well. window that will pay is one that shows a large variety of cough lozenges and gives the impression that you carry just about every sort there is. This can be easily arranged by making with some boards from packing cases a false bottom to the window, this bottom to start at the foot of the glass inside and tip up at the back to a height of perhaps two feet. Upon this slanting platform place the packages of cough drops in alternate order.

X X X

LIGHT CIGARS NOT MILDEST. Probably there is not one smoker in a thousand, says a cigar expert, who is not surprised and, in fact, incredulous, when he is told that the color of a cigar is absolutely no guide to its strength. Yet such is the case, and a fact well known to cigar manufacturers and importers. The belief of smokers that cigars of dark color are strong and those of a lighter shade are milder is, in point of fact, as fallacious as it is general. This is but one of many delusions harbored by consumers of tobacco, and which practical cigar men have smiled at and indulged from time immemorial. But of recent years the inclination of smokers toward light-hued cigars has assumed the proportions of a "craze," and the producers are finding much difficulty in meeting the demand. The manufacturers and Cuban tobacco raisers would now gladly correct the error; but, after having carefully classified their products under the style of claros, colorados, maduros, etc., for decades, they find it next to impossible to dispel the delusion.

A maker of Havana cigars uses but one grade or blend of tobacco in the body or filler of his cigars. Exactly the same stock is used in his Conchas as in his Perfectos; in his claros

as in his maduros. After the cigars are made, however, his "selector" takes them in hand and classifies them according to the relative shades of the wrappers. This is done to effect a uniformity in the appearance of each box of cigars, and to enable the dealer to readily indulge the whims of the self-deluded smoker.

Inasmuch as the wrapper constitutes not more than one-tenth of the cigar, it will readily be seen that the degree of its strength or mildness is very inconsiderable in effect. In this connection, however, it is interesting to note that tobacco tradesmen versed in the intricacies of the industry rigidly bar the lightcolored wrapper from their own smoking tables, knowing that it generally indicates that the leaf was prematurely cut and improperly cured, and that it impairs the flavor and burn of the cigar. Cubans, who, by the way, are notably partial to mild tobacco, avoid smoking light-colored cigars just as they avoid eating a green orange or an unripe banana.

The prejudice of these natives and of tobacco tradesmen is a logical one, and serves to throw into bold relief a peculiar misconception of facts which is both amusing and embarrassing to venders of the fragrant weed.

Whether cigar smokers will ever awaken to the fact that a dark cigar is, if anything, milder and invariably sweeter and more aromatic than a light cigar, remains to be seen.— Tobacconist.

PHARMASAYINGS.

"The commercial tendencies of today strongly press one to yield to his commercial instincts, but as all pharmacists cling with some tenacity to the foundation of their calling, their first and strongest impulse is to protect in great measure the the professional side, even though they may have the inclination toward the commercial, and desire to give it more or less prominence.

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful, but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do."

"Strictly speaking. pharmacy is a branch of therapeutics It is as much a medical branch as dental surgery is a branch of general surgery. It is unfortunate, from a scientific point. of view, that pharmacy, as practiced in the United States today, is both scientific and commercial, but the condition exists, and the probabilities are most strong that it will continue to exist until the scientific work of pharmacists is better appreciated, both by the public and the physicians."

"Great as is the need of scientific attainment in every profession, there is even greater need of moral responsibility."

EVOLUTION OF PHARMACY.

By C. H. Hoffman, of Little Rock, Ark. Read before the Arkansas Association of Pharmacists.

The early history of pharmacy is coeval with that of medicine; and as medicine may be considered as a science or an art, so is pharmacy a many-sided vocation. It is at the same time a science, and an art, a trade, and all these conceptions are correct. All depends upon the viewpoint at which we place ourselves. The object of pharmaceutical science is to provide remedial agents for the treatment of disease; and its studies embrace chemistry, materia medica, botany, pharmacognosy, physiology, pathology and bacteriology.

The art comprises applied chemistry and technique, and the trade necessitates the study and application of business principles.

In our present paper we are concerned, however, only with the evolution of the art and science.

Since pharmacy is primarily dependent upon chemistry, its beginning dates with that science. The trite old statement that history repeats itself is illustrated by some of our mod

ern advertisements.

The ancient Egyptians exposed their sick in public; so that if any of those who passed by had been similarly attacked, they might give them advice for the benefit of the sufferers. We have preserved the principle, but only ehanged the method.

The beginnings of chemistry are lost in the haze of the remote past, and unquestionably date back thousands of years to the time when the pressing needs of man taught him to adapt

to his own ends the means and materials

placed at his disposal. In the apocryphal book "Enoch," originally written about 115 to 120 B. C., we learn that woman was first to receive instructions in chemical lore.

It is stated there that one of the angels, Azazel, taught women the making of jewelry and the use of rouge, imparting not a little information concerning the metals and precious stones of the earth.

Whatever knowledge the Egyptians, Hebrews and other ancients had of chemical processes, they had acquired in a purely accidental manner; these were applied for the practical

results obtainable; but no explanation of these processes was given.

Neither did the Greeks or Romans make attempts to collate facts then known, or to pursue the investigation of natural phenomena for the attainment of a definite purpose, nor before the fourth century of the present era were endeavors made to gain an insight into chemical processes by experiment.

Such a lack of data did not prevent the people of antiquity from speculating on the nature of matter, however, and their views upon the ultimate constituents, or elements of the organized world, have given the first age of chemistry a characterizing feature. At that time the theory that one element can be transformed into another was developed from the and at that time, primarily in Egypt, attempts ancient doctrines of the nature of the elements, were made to transform the base metals into gold and silver. The art of transmutation was termed chemia. Alchemy, which is derived from the Arabic, was an agent for effecting transmutation; and it had for its object the solution of the problem of transmutation, the attainment of the so-called "philosophers' stone," by the aid of which metals were to be transmuted and the life of man prolonged. This task characterized the age of alchemy a period extending for at least twelve centuries. The age was one of magic and necromancy, but effected the extension of the knowledge of chemical facts.

The next period in the history of chemistry is known as the Iatro Chemical, or that of chemical mysticism. This period extended from the first half of the sixteenth century acterized by the absorption of medicine by to the middle of the seventeenth, and was charits alchemistic tendencies, and was not yet an chemistry. However, chemistry did not lose independent branch of natural science.

After the Iatro-Chemical period was passed, we have a transition period, and chemistry became a science. This period is known as that of the Phlogiston Theory, owing to the fact that the chemists at the end of the seventeenth century, and during most of the eighteenth century, attempted to explain the phenomena of combustion by assuming the existence of a hypothetical principle of combustibility-phlogiston.

The early part of the most recent history of chemistry is characterized by the decline

and fall of the phlogiston theory, and its replacement by the antiphlogiston chemistry of Lavoisier, which laid the foundation of the new chemistry, a science which governs the era of quantitative investigation. This era had for its guiding star the chemical atomic theory, and the immense strides made in the science during the latest epoch are due to the exact study of chemical composition and the close investigation of physico chemical relations.

Cicero and other Roman writers applied the word apotheke to designate the upper stories of houses in which wine was stored to clarify. Galen mentions that medicines were also stored in these rooms, and its present meaning is derived probably from the monks.

Pharmaceutical chemistry received its impetus from Paracelsus, born in Switzerland in 1493. Paracelsus taught that the object of chemistry is not to make gold, but to prepare medicines; and he considered that the operations which occur in the human body are chemical ones, and that the state of health is dependent upon the composition of the organs and the juices they secrete. Paracelsus taught that an increase of mercury produces paralysis; that an increase of salt gives rise to diarrhea, and that gout results from the elimination of the sulphur of the body. Paracelsus maintained that each disease must be antagonized by specific medicine, and that the preparations of these remedies was the aim of chemistry. In inaugurating this method of combating disease, he employed many chemical preparations, among which were sugar of lead, corrosive sublimate, copper sulphate, lapis infernalis (nitrate of silver), and antimony compounds.

In addition he was first to employ oil of vitriol, sweetened by spirit of wine, iron safron, and iron tinctures, and introduced improved methods of preparing various essences and extracts by means of spirits of wine. These additions to the medical treasury instigated apothecaries and physicians to engage in the study of chemistry, for the preparation of new medicine required a certain knowledge of chemical facts; and before the adventure of Paracelsus the apothecary had been a mere herbalist and storekeeper. It may be said, therefore, that pharmacy began then, and as a distinct profession and subject of study was largely founded by Paracelsus.

In those days it required experience, skill, intelligence and learning to be a successful and scientific apothecary. Although with the founding of Schools of Medicine in the larger European universities, Colleges of Pharmacy were. established. The instruction which the pharmacist received from his employer or preceptor every day in pharmaceutical work was regarded as a prominent factor in the student's education. The pharmacists of that time were well trained in laboratory work. Into the pharmacy laboratory came their raw material, and

from their laboratory issued those finished products that represented the labor, thought and pride of the apothecary, and bore the vital stamp of his individuality. With the rapid development of the country came a large demand for druggists; and to meet this demand Colleges of Pharmacy were founded, whose curriculum consisted principally of chemistry, materia medica, and a smattering of botany. The establishing of licensing boards still further retarded the progress of the scientific teaching of pharmacy, and made the principal goal of the college course the obtaining of a license.

As in all affairs of man, evolution is irresistibly at work. Pharmacy followed the rule of other industries. This led to the pharmacist purchasing finished products rather than raw materials, as did the pharmacist of yesterday.

Medical schools, to satisfy the demand of the rapidly developing country, sprang into existence in great numbers and turned out a large number of incompletely and wrongly educated physicians. At that time the practice of medicine and the employment of remedial agents was based on empiricism. The physician of that age had but little knowledge of the underlying pathology of disease, and but a slight conception of the physiological action of drugs; hence medication was mostly symptomatic. Empiricism is not, as is often stated, the negation of science. It represents the first stage of science. It is an unreasoned (not unreasonable) experiment transmitted to us by tradition. It is known that such a medicament has a beneficial effect, although its mode of action is not understood. This lack of training on the physiologic action of drugs, as well as the limited drug knowledge which these pharmacists possessed, coupled with insufficient and inefficient teaching of one or two branches in the medical colleges, such as the course in materia medica and therapeutics, are responsible for the nostrum age of pharmacy. The physician had largely abandoned to pharmaceutical manufacturers his privilege and duty of prescribing. And these manufacturers have gradually come to presume to advise the physician. in therapeutics as well as in materia medica. The advantage in the sale of these nostrums over the labor in prescription filling led the retail pharmacist to endorse these preparations to the physicians. So neither the pharmacist's nor the manufacturer's advice was disinterested. It led to nostrum makers lauding dangerous drugs under high-sounding names, not suggestive, however, of their potent ingredients. Chloral under various trade names and also acetanilid are well known examples.

Emulated by the success of others, and not realizing his lack of knowledge due to faulty training, the pharmacist himself in many cases became manufacturer. became manufacturer. This is well illustrated

in the case of antiseptics. Antiseptics were placed on the market by individuals unlearned in bacteriology. They were injudiciously advertised; the public was lulled into a false state of security, and the importance of the natural protective measures, such as cleanliness and isolation, were belittled. Others were advertised to accomplish results that were inherently impossible. Deodorants were praised as disinfectants.

If the pharmacist as well as the physician. who prescribed or endorsed them had been trained in the fundamental principles of biology and bacteriology, they would have known that living matter is living matter, and that the protoplasm of the micrococcus is the same as the protoplasm of the cells of the human body, and that there can be no substance introduced into the body that will destroy the bacteria without destroying the tissue cells at the same time; hence there can be no such a thing as a specific antiseptic. By this we mean substance that will have a destructive action on one kind of cellular life and not on other forms. C'ells are essentially the same as regards living matter. Parasitic, saprophytic, symbiotic, independent. The cells all react to the same injurious agents. The difference in reaction is due largely to conditions outside of the cell.

When people uneducated in bacteriology learn that a certain compound of mercury, or a particular aldehyde or benzine derivative will, in almost inconsiderable amount, kill the growth of germs in a test tube, they think at once of their therapeutical application, and they forget or ignore the almost infinitesimal size of the germ, and that when it is in the tissues of the body the antiseptic substance will act on all the cells according to their size, and consequently, while almost infinitesimal amount will suffice to kill the germ, in order for that amount to reach them, a considerable amount will act on the tissues of the body; hence antisepties are impossible under these conditions The location of germs. on the other hand, in many cases is such that in order to reach them the whole body would have to be saturated with antiseptic. Such diseases as tuberculosis illustrate this point.

an

The prescribing of nostrums by physicians and advertisement of patent medicines by druggists are responsible for self-medication. The whole sequence of evils, of imaginary diseases, neglected ailments, drug addictions, and fatal poisoning follows in natural order. The layman hesitates to tamper with a prescription, but he has not the same wholesome fear for a ready-made preparation.

The lack of training in pharmacognosy enabled unscrupulous dealers to substitute inferior and adulterated articles without fear of detection.

Since evolution, however, means nothing but

the survival of the fittest and the extinction of the degenerate, conservative and scientific pharmacy and medicine are saving the day. Advances have been made in recent years in pharmaceutic ethics, in the traffic in proprietary and nostrum remedies, in the higher requirements of registrating boards, adaptation of higher standards and improved curricula in Schools of Pharmacy, embracing particularly pharmacognosy in the materia médica in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary, in the operation of the American Medical Association and especially its counsel on chemistry with the pharmacist, by the enactment of the Pure Food Drugs Law by the Federal Government, and its composing States by the pharmacists of today through their individual and concerted efforts toward the highest standard.

Unfortunately all these advances are along commercial lines, and have a tendency to make the pharmacist a merchant rather than member of a skilled and dignified profession. While colleges have raised their standards, increased the number of laboratory hours, all this learning acquired by the student is utilized only to secure a license, and then he buys his medicines rather than prepare them. He fails to test his drugs, he neglects to employ his chemistry in applying the tests to his medicines and drugs, which he buys from the manufacturer and sells to the public without knowledge of his own that they really conform to legal or other standards. legal or other standards. He may sell diphtheria antitoxin containing tetanus bacilli, or sutures that are inspite of their guarantee nonsterile, and which may induce a fatal infection. In fact, he would rather depend on the honesty of the manufacturer than apply his acquired knowledge to test them. The least he could do is to search out unethical manufacturers and expose their vicious methods to public scorn.

THE U. S. PHARMACOPOEIAL CONVENTION 1910.

By A. R. L. Dohme. Ph. D. Read before the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association.

All during the week of May 2nd many of us, in fact about four hundred of us, were kept busy at the annual meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association at Richmond, where in the beautiful Hotel Jefferson there assembled as representative and fine a set of pharmacists as ever graced a meeting of that association. Richmond is an ideal convention city in many ways, mainly, however, because of the splendid facilities and accommodations. at the beautiful Hotel Jefferson, where in a court just back of the large spacious hotel lobby, surrounded by palms and potted plants and splashing fountains, and under a beautifully illuminated dome stands the magnificent statue of that great genius whose mind formu