THE PRICE OF MEDICINES. 



455 



Inconsistent 

 prices. 



The rate of 

 prices. 



The inconsistency of druggists' prices has often been matter 

 of complaint; but with the system of appraising medicines 

 which prevails in this country, it is an evil not easily cured. 

 Medicines are cheap or dear ; or, from the trade point of view, 

 unprofitable or profitable, according to no very definite rule. 

 Here is the formula for a box of pills : 



R Calomel, gr. x. 

 Ext. Aloes. 

 Colchici, aa. gr. iv. 

 Opii Pulv. gr. j. 

 M. Fiant pilulae iv., quarum sumat unam hora somni, p. r. n. 



I need hardly say that the price that would be charged in 

 most shops for these four pills would be quite unremunerative : 

 and yet the majority of pharmacists would feel themselves 

 precluded by custom from asking the sum (still very small) which 

 might fairly be expected for four doses of a powerful medicine. 



A preparation again, made according to the following formula, 

 would in many houses be supplied at a price which would 

 scarcely cover the inevitable risk of accident which attends the 

 dispensing of dangerous poisons : 



R Atropise Sulphat, gr. j. 

 p. ^Eth. Mtr., 3iss. 

 Aq. Dest., 3viss. 

 M. fiant guttae. Signa Three drops three times a day. 



As medicines are composed of ingredients varying in cost 

 and number, and in the facility with which they may be com- 

 bined, it is inevitable, under our present system, that there 

 should be discrepant relations between cost and price ; and the 

 experience of the pharmacist will only be that of every trader, 

 that some transactions are more profitable than others. 



But while it is not easy to point out a remedy for the Fair charges, 

 inconsistencies that occur in the price of medicines, it will, I 

 hope, be admitted that neither the safety of the public nor the 

 well-being of pharmacy can be advanced by such a reduction of 

 the price of medicines as the co-operative system would tend to 

 introduce. The responsibilities of the British pharmacist are 



