more business, and more business means suc

cess.

Advertising and Display.

To make a success of the drug business, a clean, well-arranged and well-lighted place of business is most essential and is, in itself, a trade getter. People like to patronize a bright, attractive store. It makes the impression on the public that you are doing a big business and making money, else you could not afford to have such an attractive store, and many people are influenced by this. Windows and show cases, if tastefully arranged, color effect considered, and with price cards and descriptive placards shown attractively, always prove strong selling agents, and mean increased revenue. Counter slips to wrap in packages, calling the customer's attention to your special features, will also induce extra business. Mailing circulars does well enough in rural districts, but amounts to little in cities where it has been overdone. Newspaper advertising is effective only from a bargain standpoint. If you have something to sell at a specially low price, it is advantageous, but not otherwise. Pertinent Points Which Will Materially Aid a Druggist to Succeed.

Permit no loafing in your place of business. Many persons, particularly ladies, will not come into a place where a lot of men are standing around, talking and smoking. You may offend a few sensitive people by not permitting it, but by such a rule you will gain many to offset the loss, and besides, you will not be interrupted in your own or clerks' work. As to druggists' relationship with physicians, always receive them cordially. If they wish any information. give it your special attention. If they wish to make a purchase, make them a specially low price as near cost as practical, but expect and demand that they pay you. Never give a commission to a physician for his prescription business, as it will react on you. The public soon becomes wise to it and your business is hurt. Counter remedies are always a profitable line. Formulate and make them yourself. It requires little time and small cost for packages, labels, etc. When you do this and you have something of merit, it belongs to you, and not to a manufacturing concern. Besides, you can prepare the preparations as you need them and not keep a lot of money tied up in non-secret preparations, as is frequently done by druggists. With the proper care and attention, profit will also be derived from side lines, such as soda water, cigars, tobacco, post cards, stationery, candy. fountain pens, soaps, perfumery, shaving outfits; in fact, a full line of the usual sundries.

XX

A CHEMIST'S DISCOVERY.

The rose would, no doubt. "smell as sweet by any other name," but how does it contrive to

"smell sweet" at all? With this query in mind, a French chemist set about to subject flowers to analysis in order to find out the secret. Being cut into sections and having pure hydrochloric acid poured over them, it is no wonder that the tender flowers gave up a portion of their secret. Yet they did not give it up entirely.

The investigator was able to ascertain only that the fine oil which gives the perfume is apparently derived in every case from chlorophyll, and is usually located at the upper surfaces of the petals or sepals in delicate cellules. There seems to be some inverse relation between the amount of pigment or coloring matter in the flower and the perfume. Some of the more soberly colored flowers have the most delightful fragrance, while brilliant hues do not imply a corresponding sweetness of smell.

We

The fact that the perfume oils are derived from chlorophyll is interesting, because, as will be remembered, chlorophyll is that substance in plants which, when acted upon by sunlight, turns a leaf into a sort of chemical laboratory. But it cannot act without the sunbeams. know how much we owe to the sun as the source of all life and energy upon the earth, and yet it is a little surprising to reflect that the bi orb is directly instrumental in the production of the exquisite perfume with which a flower salutes our nostrils.-London Globe.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR PHARMACY?

BY "A WOULD-BE PHARMACIST.“

The answer apparently depends upon who asks the question, whether a member of the general public, a person who only looks upon the calling as a money-making scheme, a pharmacist anxious to see the glory of ancient pharmacy regenerated and perpetuated, or a doctor who is anxious to have honest, intelligent and trained help in protection of the health of the general public, or in its restoration.

Being merely a student, only an applicant for membership in the calling, my thoughts and conclusions must of necessity be crude; but if they have any merit, they certainly have that of an honest conviction, that it is or should and can be a useful and very honorable calling.

Believing this and, in addition, believing that I could do more good in this than in any other calling, I have selected it as my life's work astically in order to prepare myself to honestly. and have already labored hard and enthusiintelligently and efficiently discharge the duties I hope to be entrusted with when fully qualified.

The determination to do and be something, coupled with an incessant effort in that direc tion, has conquered all things. Some of the greatest men have achieved wonders in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles. Pov

erty is no argument for a lack of preparation and should never be countenanced. Poverty should at most only retard our final and complete preparation.

The lawyer who is uneducated is a hindrance. if not a curse to the material welfare of humanity. The uneducated and untrained nurse and doctor are not only a hindrance, but an actual danger to health and life. The medical and legal professions are wise in that they require the very highest standard. Qualification and courage are the requirements and sentiment finds no place with those in charge of regulation. Doctors go so far all over the world as to require graduation as a requisite to go before a board; and in all States the examining boards require a gradually increasing academic qualification. The Texas Medical Board requires at the present time fourteen academic units and graduation from a medical school. I am of the opinion that Texas should follow the example of Europe, Canada, Cuba and many of the States in the United States with regard to the profession of pharmacy. I believe this and advocate it in the face of the fact that if such is done more will be required of me than if conditions remain unchanged.

I will not venture to suggest how much academic education should be required, but I believe not less than a common school education. Perhaps it would be best to express this as do the doctors and other professions and schools, in units. I would say at least nine units (representing our public schools up to the high school) for the assistant's certificate and two more for the full pharmacist's certificate. Surely no one can object to this as any one can go to night school, or even alone master algebra, part of plane geometry, the history of America and England, modern history, grammar and composition while serving an apprenticeship. Now while I believe that a person can get a clearer and better knowledge of chemistry, physics, botany, bacteriology, physiology, materia medica and pharmacy by attending a school than out of it, yet it is not only possible to master these subjects alone, but it has been done.

With so many good schools of pharmacy all over America, who is it that can not save enough to attend at least one year? Indeed, I Indeed, I believe it is possible to save enough to attend the full two years. The schools are situated in cities where young men can get positions in drug stores with college privileges. earning board and lodging and just enough for books and a few clothes. At many of these schools they have student journals, student book and supply stores, and eating clubs where the poorer students earn their board by clerking or waiting on the table.

I am just now thinking of a foreigner, a young Russian, who could hardly speak English, and yet courageous as a lion, strong in con

viction and unconquerable in desire; he undertook to study medicine. For quite awhile he acted as hostler and slept over the stable, another year he acted as orderly in a hospital connected with the medical school, that is he cleaned up the floors, operating room, etc. In each instance he reflected upon these positions. a glory undreamed of; his classmates respected, loved and admired him. They sought his friendship, each vieing with the other as to who should be honored with an opportunity to help him. Always standing, in the face of his extra labors and hard time, near the head of his class, he is now a physician, loved and admired by classmates, teachers and citizens. The city itself is better for him having lived, suffered, striven and conquered there. I have also in mind two men, one a pharmacy student and the other a medical student, who lived in a garret and did their own laundry and cooking, making most of their furniture from boxes. The pharmacist is now earning a good salary and is an honor to his profession and a blessing to the town in which he is located. The other will soon be a physician. He is still fighting and winning. This last one is married and has children.

These are by no means isolated cases, and the world is teeming with such boys and girls. From such a boyhood the world has often recruited its generals, statesmen, chemists, jurists, poets, engineers and physicians. These are the people that have made mankind conquer, civilize and make happy the human family.

The value we place upon a thing depends upon its scarcity or the difficulty of getting it. The efficiency of these people is due to their continued effort, to the fact that in fighting they acquired strength as well as knowledge.

By far greater good will result to the public, to the doctor, to the profession of pharmacy and even to the individual of whom it is required, by raising the standard in pharmacy. What if we who are still in the making do suffer; will we not be better off in the long run? Personally, I hope to live to see the day when the Texas board will require all candidates to have a certain number of units, at least one year in some school of pharmacy, to first take an assistant examination and not until a year after take the full pharmacist examination: to have at least two years' store experience before taking either examination, and to be able to interpret and do anything directed in the U. S. P. I think the candidate should also be able to analyze milk, water, urine and gastric contents. All of this is a hard program, and to take part in it we must work and study; but it will develop our minds, bodies and skill, and in the end benefit us financially.

In the recent examination held in San Antonio, during an oral ordeal one of the examiners said to one of the candidates: "Young man, what is the dose of caffeine?" After some con

fusion and quite a delay the answer given was one-fourth of a grain. Whereupon the examiner said, "Next." Again there was hesitation, Again there was hesitation, deliberation and confusion, but at last the candidate said: "Why, I'll tell you; if I had never taken any before I would not risk more than one-hundredth of a grain." This is only one of many such examples. I believe that to allow any one so ignorant as this, to allow any one so thoughtless of the great trust he is seeking to enter upon, to allow any one so little aware of, or caring so little for the dangers he must protect from, to take an examination, is a pity to say the least. Allowing such men to take an examination is in itself an encouragement for not appreciating the great obligations, the magnitude of the trust, and the great danger to health and life. By requiring acanation cover in every respect the U. S. P., it will demic qualifications and by making the examicut down the number of candidates appearing, but will turn out better clerks, better future proprietors and will result in greater efficiency in the action of medicines. This will make convalescence surer and more rapid and give an impetus to faith in medicines for which rational therapeutics has already done so much. Fewer patents and proprietaries will be sold, but more prescriptions will be written and filled. The day when a young man or woman can memorize a quiz compend and pass will be a thing of the past to the great good of every one. While fewer candidates will go before the boards, yet a greater number will avail themselves of the opportunities so generously offered by so many good schools. And again while fewer candidates will before the board, it is also true that so many will not then continue going before the board until at last they manage to squeeze by.

Let me illustrate: Suppose that on three successive examinations the following happens, for the first there are eighty candidates and forty pass, on the second seventy of whom thirty pass, and the third sixty and twenty pass. From this it appears that 210 candidates have appeared for examination. Now as a matter of fact, it is very likely that those who failed reappeared a second and a third time. To illustrate and for sake of argument, we will suppose that on the second examination the forty who failed on the first examination together with thirty new ones made up the second batch; and on the third examination there were the forty who failed on either of the two other examinations and twenty new ones to make up the third lot. Now by adding up the number who passed on the three examinations we have a total of ninety, and this plus the number of failures on the last being carried forward to some future examination we have a total of 130 candidates instead of 210. Evidently the board has been pursued and harassed by the weak ones. It is also evident that the real per

centage of those who passed by a continued effort is greater than apparent. We apparently have 210 candidates of whom ninety passed, or a little over 42 per cent. In reality there were 130 candidates, of whom ninety passed, or over 69 per cent. Now I do not say that the conditions in Texas are this bad, but certainly the number appearing at each examination when added up represents a great deal more than there really are due to the candidates trying over and over again. I am not censuring the board, but write as I do to show that these candidates will not keep trying if the standard is raised academically or technically.

However high we make the standard, a few will now and then fall short on one or more subjects, due to excitement or misunderstanding the question, or even to a lack of knowledge. It very often happens that some very well qualified men will be found among those who fail to pass; the point I make is that the number will be fewer and they will not be coming back three or four or more times, thus relieving the board of the annoyance of such persons.

There is a tendency to accuse the college people of a desire to shut out all of those who are not of them. In time I should be glad to see Texas require her druggists to be graduates from some good school of pharmacy, as she does with her doctors, but not yet. Still, let us make a beginning. Let us begin with at least a grammar school education. I say a certain number of units or counts because in that way it makes no difference where the requirements. were obtained, whether at college, at an academy, at a normal or alone in spare moments.

In conclusion, I want to say that I know of several candidates, who have successfully passed the Texas and other boards, who never saw, as a student, the inside of any school of pharmacy. While working in a drug store they fitted up a place where they could learn laboratory chemistry and pharmacy. Quite a number of these are very fair chemists and splendid pharmacists.

PHARMASAYINGS.

"Whenever I find a man who is a truly great man I find one whose heart is bigger than his head; whose hand is busier than his tongue, and whose capacity for work is infinitely greater than his chest expansion."

"Whoever refuses to contribute his share to the sum total of human knowledge, sooner or later finds that his monopoly of secrets is out of date, and the world is going on without him."

"There is no day too poor to bring us an opportunity, and we are never so rich that we can afford to spurn what the day brings."

"There are some people whose heads are chockful of brilliant ideas-but they seem unable to project these beyond their heads."

"The question continuously arises, how long can professional pharmacy and the drug business with its numerous side lines hold together without detracting from the standing of the pharmacist or impede the activities of the druggist as a man of business ???

XX

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE FOOD AND DRUGS ACT.

BY H. H. RUSBY, M. D. (Read before the Vermont Pharmaceutical Association, June 21, 1911.)

The Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was based upon, and its character determined by, certain principles which are fundamental in our system of government. Upon the more

general recognition of these principles, and

upon farther and broader legislation based upon them, will depend, in great measure, the health and comfort of our people and even the continued success of our government. It is these principles and their applications which I wish to discuss today, rather than the specific provisions or the workings of this law.

No law can be safely considered otherwise than in its relation to the particular form of government that is to administer it. We must, therefore, begin by reminding ourselves that the theory of our form of government is that we govern ourselves through certain individuals chosen from among and of ourselves for the performance of specific duties which can be better performed by them for the community than by each individual for himself. The individuals thus selected together constitute the administration, commonly miscalled the government. In reality, we are ourselves the government. The logical thinker will see that paternalism is not a possibility in such a government. If it were possible for our administration to engage in paternalism, then we must all be our own parents, for it would be a case of practicing paternalism upon ourselves. Whenever we hear a man complain that one of our laws or its administration, is paternalistic, let us remember that while such influences may act under other forms of government, the expression is here necessarily self-contradictory. What such a critic usually means, though he certainly does not intend to publish the fact. is that he desires to engage in some course of procedure that is unjust or otherwise injurious to his fellows, and that the law in question is doing exactly what it was intended to do, namely, protecting them against the execution

of his design. This protection may take the very mild form of preventing a profit so excessive as to be opposed to the public welfare, of insuring the quality of the goods called for by the contract, or the more serious one of preventing an absolute swindle or the furnishing of some article dangerous to life, such as a poison, a habit-forming drug or a deadly weapon in the hands of children. Our courts have determined that it is even a proper function of such laws to prevent the formation or indulgence of immoral habits, against which many of our laws are directed, to protect young people. In all these cases, it is to be noted that the people have, after deliberation and discus

sion, decided that it is desirable and proper to

unite in acting for the common welfare, and to appoint officials to take such action.

This is genuine co-operation. According to our socialist friends, it is socialism in its essential nature. These terms we need not disrecognize that the principle involved is that cuss. Whatever name we apply to it, we must government is justified in doing such things for all of the people as will be better done in that way, all things taken into consideration, than through individual action. We often hear people discussing the question of whether certain acts constitute "proper functions" of government. I think it is not too much to say that, if the above principle is complied with, no legal act can be regarded as an improper function of government.

The expression, "all things considered," here employed, of course, requires careful attention and involves many considerations. If we go too far in substituting community for individual action, we may interfere with the proper strengthening and developing process of the individual and we may interfere with personal freedom. In that case, the result is not being so well attained, "all things considered," by the government as it would be by the individual. In deciding such cases, it is imperative that we consider the nature and importance of the service, the relative practicability of its being performed individually or in common, and the extent to which community action will detract from a proper interest and activity on the part of the individual.

Applying these tests to the act in question, we are called upon to consider (1) whether there is any necessity for the regulation of the food and drug trade and, if so (2) whether the

people individually are as competent to regulate it as through officers of administration.

As to whether a necessity exists for the regulation of the trade in drugs, medicines and foods, it seems strange that there should be any question, yet it is by no means uncommon to hear the fact denied, so we may well consider the conditions which furnish an answer to this question.

In the purchase of such articles at first hand, both the seller and the purchaser are supposed to be exceptionally well informed as to the quality and price, so that there is an approximate conformnity between them. The farther that we get away from first-hands, toward and to the consumer, the less there is of this knowledge, and the greater the opportunity for exacting a price one or more grades higher than the quality of the article justifies.

It thus happens that the dealer is in a position, if he choose, to purchase a low-grade article at its correct price, and to sell it at a higher one to an uninformed merchant or consumer. Of course, the margin of profit is then greater by dealing in low-grade articles than in the better ones. But it is often claimed that none will care to engage in such practices; that dealers are so honest that we need not fear misrepresentation of the grade or price of merchandise. This claim I think it is hardly worth while to discuss. It may safely be left to the judgment of any one who has had his business eye-teeth cut. He who has not yet He who has not yet submitted to such operations may be confidently expected to undergo them if he assumes an attitude of blind trust in his business.

A number of incidents illustrative of the truth in regard to this matter occur to me as I write. I once traveled on a steamer that carried thirty-five hundred tons of licorice root. If the owner could have sold that cargo at the price of a grade one-half cent higher than its quality justified, he would have netted $35,000 by the act. One of my friends who manufactures licorice has filled in a deep swamp in Jersey City, making a full-sized city lot and the four streets surrounding it into good, high, dry land, with the earth removed from his licorice root. Imagine the total weight of this material and remember that it has all been paid for at the price of licorice root! I have seen a lot of many tons of nux vomica seeds which had been rolled in clay until they bore a coating which probably increased their weight by at least 50 per cent. I have often seen buchu leaves to which had been added their own weight of stems. chopped as finely as coarse sand. Asafoetida frequently contains from 30 to 50 per cent. of chopped stones, and I have seen the same in cut dandelion root. Those who are acquainted with my papers before the American Pharmaceutical Association will recall many similar forms of fraud. Who will then say that a close scrutiny of commer

cial drugs by some one, at some point between producer and consumer, is not a strict necessity?

I have considered in these cases only acts of deliberate fraud, of a kind which must be considered exceptional in the drug trade, but what about the occurrence of similar results through carelessness or inattention? The collection of our native drugs is performed chiefly in very small lots, by the most ignorant, careless people, who trade their product at the village stores. The merchant or his clerk, often. equally ignorant, combines these small parcels. to make up a shipment to the general agent. Mistakes of identity, foreign admixture, the adherence of earth to roots, of stems to leaves, of wood to barks, and various other accidents, must be expected, and they call quite as strongly for correction as do the results of the fraudulent acts previously considered. What do such people know of alkaloidal standards? How fatuous to depend upon them for regulation of the trade! What training does the average pharmacist receive in such directions? In my teaching at the New York College of Pharmacy, I deem it one of my most important duties to instruct my students against every one of these pitfalls, but what percentage of the pharmacists of the United States can claim that they have had such training?

If such attempts are commonly made in the case of crude drugs, where detection is of the easiest, can we expect less in the case of manufactured articles? Is it, or is it not, human nature to take an easy advantage in a trade? Certainly such conduct is by no means universal, nor even the rule, but malefactors would quickly enough force most business down to their own level were no restrictions placed upon them. We have found the country flooded with adulterated and sub-standard powdered drugs, with adulterated chemicals, with tablets and capsules containing shortweight and substituted articles. I have found one large manufacturing house labeling its galenical preparations as containing the standard percentage of constituents, yet never assaying them to ascertain the actual character of the articles before affixing their label.

Turning to the second application of the law, what have we found true of the food stuffs distributed by our grocer friends? You of Vermont know that no matter how honestly you might prepare your maple products, their composition, when they reach the table, would require the most expert of chemists to determine. It has even been reported that their adulteration at the point of production has not been altogether unknown. Almost every form of refuse has been regularly incorporated into ground spices and condiments. Corn-cobs have been ground into meal and feed, and powdered and stained, have been sold as cayenne pepper. Great houses have even gone so far as to dis