the generic "he," let me not fail in welcoming woman into the modern science and the fine art of pharmacy.) A principle of selection should operate at the portals of the profession. A certain training is ever desirable in him who is to be charged with peculiar responsibility, and particularly so when that responsibility extends to the life and health of human beings. Not every man who has spoiled a good farmer or a good mechanic to go behind the prescription counter has necessarily made a wise choice. His fitness should, at least, be tested by some standard of preparation. The pharmacist of the future must be a scientist. His preliminary education should therefore bear upon his scientific future. In his professional training a mastery of certain sciences should be fundamental.

Mineralogy and chemistry, as covering the structural qualities and the functional behavior of the inorganic bodies with which he has to deal; botany, as covering the structural qualities and the functional behavior of the flora which he utilizes; anatomy and physiology, as acquainting him with the structural qualities and the functional behavior of the animal, and, especially, the human body, upon which pharmaceutical agents are to operate; pharmacology, pharmacognosy, and toxicology, as informing him of the nature, the preparation and the general and specific effects of such agents; these are the foundational branches upon which the pharmacist's two indispensable years of college training should be spent. Advanced courses should cover what may be called the clinical or special branches of his education, and among these should be included the essentially artistic and the desirably esthetic features of his art. In a word, the science and the art of pharmacy must be distinctively recognized and attained in order that the student may be suitably equipped for this responsible branch of the public service-in order that he may command the public confidence and share in that mutual respect which should lie between him and the physician.

With such a preliminary culture, and with such

a scientific training, the pharmacist's calling will take on a truly professional quality, and to his venerable art, which has grown so greatly in commercial consequence, will return in full measure that ancient dignity which made of alchemy the servant of philosophy, but which in this later day, and in loftier association, will make of pharmacy one of the chief divisions of modern science.

THE WEAPON OF BRUTUS.

I am well aware, Mr. President, that the suggestions of needed progress in the profession of pharmacy carry with them a suggestion of criticism of the present status, and that this criticism, coming from a guest of your hospitable platform, may appear ungracious. But, like Brutus, in his memorable defense, I have the same weapon for my own calling as I have used upon yours. Proud as I am of my profession, I have long failed to find any dignity in that professional courtesy, so-called, which holds the practice of medicine always above reproach. Your calling and mine can afford to be honest with their own shortcomings. All growth rests upon an acknowledgment of its need. That complacency which forever applauds itself is fatal to advance. It should be the business of every man to see to it that those who come after him are better fitted than he to carry on the torch which at some time or other he will cease to bear. In the midst of our best living we are forever dying, but death comes to us in one of two ways: (1) death by disintegration, selfincluded death, in which the world has no gain but by the return of those elements into which we are finally resolved; (2) death by division and multiplication into those who follow us and to whose lives we add the unearned increment of ours. This is not death in life, but life in death. He is dead already, indeed, who is unwilling that the race shall "rise upon the stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things." He lives again in lives made better for his presence whose vision pierces the night of his own limitations and who continually works and waits for the dawning of a larger day.

SELECTIONS.

THE KIND OF MEN EMPLOYERS WANT.

Employers want men who combine with ambition and natural talents, honesty and the capacity for hard work. "But why lay such stress on honesty?" "The honesty of employees is guaranteed by the bonding companies." In fact they often make employees financially honest by holding over them the constant threat of detection and punishment. But they have to do only with financial integrity. The employees whose dishonesty is most costly are often those who would never take a cent from the till, but who defraud the employer through thefts of time, through half-hearted effort, or through placing their own interests above those of their firm.

Honesty means something more than financial reliability. It is the quality which makes a man work without watching the clock, or being afraid that he will give his employer more value than he is being paid for. The honest employee brings to his work the best effort of which he is capable, and begrudges

nothing where the interests of his employer are at stake.

A young man was recently applying to a well-known employer for a position. He was in the midst of rather a glowing description of his peculiar qualifications for the place, when the employer interrupted him with: "Never mind about all this. There is just one thing

I want to know. Will you work?"

Every man who intends to make himself of value to his employer and to win advancement (and the two go hand in hand, despite all that pessimists may say) must have this capacity for work. No matter how great his ability, how thorough his education, or how attractive his personality, these qualities are as worthless as a locomotive without fuel unless backed up by persistence and energy. He may be retained for a time because of his ability, but in the long race he will be found wanting. Some day his employer will be forced to give the position which he has hoped for, and which by his natural talents he is preeminently fitted to fill, to a man who, although less capable, has shown himself to be a worker.

It is work that makes a good salesman-not natural

ability, appearance, or personality. One of the best salesmen in the United States is red-headed, homely, and uncouth-he does not seem capable of selling bread to a hungry millionaire. Yet he sells on an average more than $100,000 worth of goods a year, in a field where competition is remarkably keen. He succeeds by making hard work take the place of the adaptability, the personal magnetism, and the appearance which he lacks.

The perseverance of this salesman is the quality lacking in many men. Plenty of men can work hard when the road to success seems clear, but when difficulties thicken they lose their grip. Others work by spurts, keying themselves up to high pitches for brief periods, and then lapsing to half-hearted effort. Neither the fair-weather type nor the sky-rocket worker is desired. Employers want men who can be relied upon for even better effort when the skies are dark than in times of prosperity, and who will be as persistent the month after next as they are to-day.

In considering applicants for positions, employers are always on the watch for signs of this persistence. Many well-known business men think they can judge a man on this point by the manner in which he seeks a place, and this is not a bad method, for there are few positions worth the having which can be secured without persistence.

To the technical man, more than to any other kind of man, perhaps, is intense application necessary. Science is advancing so rapidly that if he does not apply himself both in the office and out he will soon be left behind. One of the most eminent consulting engineers in the world says that he works on an average more than twelve hours a day. "I don't do this from choice," he says, "but because I am forced to in order to hold my place in my profession. If I were to give up the studying I do outside the office hours, even for a few months, I should find myself behind the times."

Men often advance to some responsible position, and then suddenly and without apparent reason fail and drop out. "The place got too big for him," we say.

But in most cases the real reason for the failure is that the man began to slacken in effort, thinking that he had advanced so far on the ladder of success that he could afford to take things easy.

For the business man of to-day there is no such thing as taking things easy. The higher he gets, the more is expected of him, and the harder he must strive. The president of a great manufacturing company, for example, says that one of his duties alone, the securing of capable assistants, is harder work than he ever had to do when he was only the head of a minor department. The man who does not realize that con

The managing director of one of the largest British banking institutions, having more than one hundred branches throughout the world, attributes the failure of many men to not realizing this truth. It has been his observation that out of one hundred employees starting on an apparently equal footing, only ten ever rise above the surface, and of this number not more than one ever proves fit to hold permanently a position of great trust and responsibility. The other nine begin to take things easy as they advance farther and farther, and thus fail to reach their maximum value. For of fit men there is great scarcity. Whenever found, large salaries and unlimited opportunities for advancement await them.-H. J. HAPGOOD, in The World's Work.

THE OVERCROWDING OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

[Those pharmacists who are inclined to think (mistakenly, as we believe) that their calling has become less remunerative, and provided with fewer and fewer opportunities, may perhaps take heart when they find from the following article that the complaint is as bad if not considerably worse in the sister profession of medicine.-THE EDITORS.]

In past years this journal has referred to the fact that there was very little uplift in medical education. A few schools in the United States have increased their preliminary requirements and have broadened the curriculum so that they are capable of turning out accomplished physicians. The increase in requirements of these schools has furnished the opportunity for other schools to open the door for a quick and easy entrance into the profession. Within the last year or two there has been a marked falling off in the number of medical students. A few medical schools report an increase, but the average attendance is distinctly lessened. This happy result is probably brought about by a recognition of the overcrowding of the profession, which is rapidly leading to results in this country similar to those which obtain in Europe. Medical fees have fallen to so low an ebb in Austria that physicians are performing vaccinations at five cents. We are on the verge in this country of a time when a recent graduate, no matter how well equipped, will have difficulty in earning a modest livelihood. Heretofore the conditions have been quite different, and it was not difficult for a young man to pick out a location. Large sections of the country were filling up and towns developed within a few days, all of which needed physicians. The number of physicians has been about I in 500, which is an overcrowding of the profession, but it is felt less in a country that has a large unsettled area and in which the population is increasing

is largely settled, and there is very little wild productive land open for settlement. An increased density of population will make the proportion of one physician to 500 inhabitants much more effective from the standpoint of competition than it is in a sparsely settled community.

There were graduated last year about 5500 medical students, more than twice as many as were needed to fill up the loss in the ranks caused by death. It is difficult to say just how many physicians died last year in the United States, but probably close to 2300. We therefore need that number of medical men to fill up the ranks depleted by death. The addition of over twice this number to the already overcrowded ranks will produce a condition of affairs where the supply of medical talent will be so abundant and the wages will be so low that a living will practically be impossible.

It should be the business of physicians everywhere to dissuade students entering on the study of medicine. They should be frankly told the situation and advised not to begin the study. If every medical college in the United States were to be closed for five years, it would be of advantage to the profession and the community. -Editorial in Medicine.

THE OLD AND NEW CHEMISTRY.

In giving a brief sketch of the evolution of chemistry from the earliest times up to the present day the lecturer divided the history of chemistry into five periods. The first of these, which extends from the earliest times to the first centuries of the present era, may be divided into three sections, and comprises, first, what little is known of the chemical arts of the Indians, Egyptians, and Hebrews down to the seventh century, and can only be judged by the metals, glass, colors, and other antiquities left by these peoples; secondly, the philosophic studies and speculations of the Greeks and Romans; and thirdly, the rise and progress of mysticism of the later Alexandrian schools, in which chemistry first appears as a branch of occult learning. The second period, which corresponds to the middle ages of European history, is the period of alchemy associated with the names of Rhazes, Avicenna, and Geber in the East, and of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Lully, and Basil Valentine in the West. With the third period, which extends over the two centuries after the Reformation, is associated the rise of medical chemistry as developed by Paracelsus, Glauber, Agricola, and others. The fourth period falls within the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and is the first in which chemistry stands out as a definite subject with a special field of investigation apart

from applications; it was inaugurated by Boyle, and was concluded by the brilliant discoveries of Black, Cavendish, Priestley, and Scheele. The fifth period, that of modern chemistry, in which the subject is raised to the rank of an exact science, was inaugurated by Lavoisier.

The Egyptian's knowledge of metallurgy appears to have been confined to the metals gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin, the latter being used, together with copper or even copper and iron, in the form of bronze. With the discovery of mercury the number of metals known was brought to seven, and as this number was sacred to the Egyptians and Persians, all things which amounted to this number were supposed to have some connection with each other, and thus arose the relationship between the names and symbols of the metals with the names of the gods and the planets. During the alchemistic period this connection with astrology and the occult sciences was largely developed by the unscrupulous, while on the part of the more serious workers an earnest search was made after three principles: First, a universal medicine, the elixir of life; secondly, a universal solvent; and thirdly, the transmutation of metals.—An abstract of a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution in London by SIR JAMES DEWAR.

WHAT IS PROFIT?

Profit is that which remains when goods are sold at an advance over the purchase price and after the cost of freight, clerk hire, rent, insurance, and other store expenses are deducted. A great many people engaged in business cannot understand why they do not make more money when they sell their goods considerably at an advance above the purchase price. The probabilities are that they conduct their business upon an extravagant basis and do not take into consideration the cost of handling and disposing of their goods.

A gentleman with a taste for figures has studied out the cost of running a business, and as a result of his investigations he says: It is surprising that many good business men deceive themselves in regard to the cost of doing business-that is, the total cost as compared with the total sales. If they are making a good If they are making a good profit such a mistake may do little harm, but if the profit is small the error may be disastrous. We occasionally hear of a retail business being done at about a cost of 10 per cent, but if the matter were investigated it would probably be found that several items of expense had been omitted and that the actual cost was nearer 25 per cent.

Interest on the capital should be charged at a fair rate, say 5 per cent. The salary of each partner

should be figured as part of the expense. All clerk hire, commissions, rent, taxes, insurance, heating, lighting, advertising, traveling, postage, and office expense, breakage and repairs, freight and cartage, as well as all material used in the store, such as paper, twine, etc., should be included; in fact, the expense of doing business covers every cent paid out except the invoice cost of the goods, and no concern can live unless it adds to the invoice cost enough profit to cover all expenses of every description. If the invoice cost of an article is $1 and it is sold for $1.25, it is easy to say we are making 25 per cent; but if the cost of doing business is 25 per cent of the sales, we are selling at a loss of about 6 per cent instead of a profit of 25 per cent. It should be remembered that 333 per cent should be added to the cost to cover the expense of 25 per cent on the sales.*

It often happens that a line of goods must be sold at an advance of only 5 per cent or 10 per cent over invoice cost, but if $100 worth is sold at 5 or 10 per cent advance, another $100 worth must be sold at 40 to 45 per cent over the invoice cost to keep the sales on a paying basis. Jobbers sometimes make a failure by selling goods on a margin of 2% to 10 per cent, when their expenses average 10 per cent on the total sales.

After inventory is taken it is a good plan to look the thing squarely in the face and ascertain the total cost of doing the year's business. If the result is unsatisfactory it may lead to greater care in the future.

A business which only pays expenses cannot be called profitable; especially as bad debts are not figured in the regular expenses, and no allowance is made for goods, which prove to be unsalable.

Now all of these points enumerated above are worthy of careful perusal, and if our readers will give them due weight, they will understand many things in regard to their own business which have puzzled them perhaps for years past. With much competition to meet, and with a narrow margin of profit, merchants must conduct their business in a very economical manner in order to make any money. They cannot sell goods at cost to any great extent nor allow a steady drain upon their resources. They must look after the leaks and watch the details of their business closely, or almost before they are aware of it they will find themselves running behind.-Criterion.

*It is our opinion that the percentage of profit, like that of expense, should be estimated on the sale price instead of the cost price, for then it is possible to make ready comparisons, and one avoids the risk, moreover, of self-deception. This has always been our method of calculation in the many articles on the subject which have appeared in the BULLETIN during the last year or two. -THE EDITORS.