VoL, ii., No. 4 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST OF AUSTRALASIA. 
105 
CorrDSjJanbcuxe. 
Memoranda for Correspondents. 
Always send your inoper name and address; loe do not j^nhlisli 
them unless you wish. 
Write on one side of the ‘paper only : write early ; and devote a 
separate sheet of paper to each query if you ask more than 
one, or if you are writiny about other matters at the same 
time. 
If you send us newspapers please mark what you wish us to 
read. 
Askus anythiny of pharmaceutical interest; we shall do our 
best to reply. 
We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions ex- 
pressed by our correspondoits, 
RECOCNITION OF COLONIAL CERTIFICATES IN 
GREAT BRRITAIN. 
{To the Editor of The Chemist and Druyyist of Australasia). 
Sir, — I see you are returning to the question of getting our 
Australasian Pharmaceutical Certificates recognised by the 
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. This is really very 
good of you, but I don’t believe there are half a dozen people 
in the whole of the seven colonies who care two jDins about it. 
“ If they do let them speak now, or be forever silent.” Be- 
sides, who that has lived out here wishes to go to England 
again ? The idea is absurd. — Yours ever, 
NATIVE. 
March 4, 1887. 
FIGHTING THE STORES, &c. 
'To the Editor of The Chemist and Druyyist of Australasia. 
Sir, 
I feel very glad to find that you are in real earnest with 
regard to the selling of drugs and patent medicines by the 
storekeepers and others. It is high time indeed that we, as 
chemists throughout the colonies, should take decided, firm, 
and united stand or action in this all important question. 
Our very bread, our very life, as tradesmen, as a respectable edu- 
: educatexl class of men, depends on the selling of drugs and 
I patent medicines. But now uneducated, ignorant men are 
i allowed to sell all these things, and they have no other claim to 
j deal in such a trade than that they happen to be pretty wealthy, or 
I in plain words that they are able to crush us — especially us, as 
I country chemists, and undersell us if they like ; but, as a rule, 
I they charge their customers more than we do although they 
i actually get their drugs and patents at a much lower rate from the 
! wholesale druggists. It is this monopoly by a few in land and 
in commerce as well, which has caused the terrible discontent 
V and the dangerous revolutionary current which is now at work 
1 in Great Britain and Ireland. The right to live is denied to 
I us by a few men. AVhy don’t they trade in a certain line and 
I leave others to trade in their own legitimate trade ? The 
I circular you have sent us contains the right questions. Every 
sinyle chemist in all the colonies should answer them straight 
1 and honestly. All that is wanted is a perfect unity between 
I us, and victory is certain to be ours. In fact, I have never 
yet seen any righteous cause conquered ; it might be for a 
j while checked. You ask for a plan or a way to reform these 
dreadful abuses. I can see only one or two radical cures for 
abuses. First, by trying to persuade the wholesale druggists 
: to trade only with us, as chemists. The people or the masses 
who suffer from trifling ailments certainly have more faith in 
us, as recognized chemists, than they have in storekeepers, or 
in their assistants, thereby they will still be our customers. 
These people are not so foolish or ignorant as some people 
think them to be, and the wholesale houses should sell all 
I patent medicines, as well, to us only (except in places where 
there is no chemist’s shop within eight or ten miles). If the 
! chemists alone get the right to sell all patents, it will make 
I no difference to the masses, they will get them and buy them 
from the chemists exactly the same ; thereby drugs and patent 
inedicines will not diminish one iota in their sale, the whole- 
sale houses will sell quite as much drugs and quite as many 
patent medicines as they do now. Moral pressure is the 
best in the long run. Convince these men as whole- 
sale sellers, who are rolling in wealth, that they are wilfully 
j doing what is a great injustice to their poorer brethren. 
I Second, should this moral pressure fail, let each do according 
to all that lays in his power to bring unity into our prices. 
If we are poor we are, after all, the strongest party, and I 
guarantee every chemist in Australasia, that when it c mes to 
; the point as a question, that the masses, or the i:>eopleowillbe 
j on our side. It is quite true, and every honest mn and 
I woman will justify us in establishing one or two wholesale 
j houses of our own. It might have a small beginning, but w'ill 
I be certain of a great future, and import all drugs and patents 
j from England and elsewRere, and for each of us to state what 
shares we shall take in such an establishment, and let such 
establishments (say one in Melbourne and one in Sydney) be 
under the control and management of retail chemists, and 
have a retail business attached to them — that, alone, with 
frugal management, will pay rents and minor expenses. Some- 
thing must be done, or else Pharmaceutical Societies will, 
before long, be useless, as they will be memberless, and then 
rules, regulations, laws, and bye-laws might be as well torn up 
and throwm to the wind. But I do hope wholesale houses and 
the proprietors of patent medicines will lay this to heart and 
do tow^ards us, as a struggling class of tradesmen, wliat is only 
right, moral, and just. 
j I wnite in earnest and strongly, jbut I have not got two faces, 
I neither can I be false to what is right and just. An honest 
heart need not fear. Let all chemists come out like men and 
fight for the right. 
RADICAL. 
S.A., March 8. 
{The Editor 'The Chemist and Druygist of Australasia.) 
' Sir, — I have read with great interest the remarks of Dr, 
' Henry, President of the Victorian branch of the British 
t Medical Association. It is indeed refreshing in these times 
! to hear of a medical man taking such a broad and generous view 
j of the unfortunate pharmacists’ position. There is no doubt that 
1 the patent medicines , and quack nostrums, are one of the greatest 
I curses to the chemist ; they entail a heavy outlay in the first 
instance, and most of them are dead stock, being superseded 
by others from time to time, wliich take their place through 
extensive advertising, wliich the public have indirectly to pay 
for. There is no doubt many of the doctors are accountable for 
j this growing evil, for W'e find them not only ordering these 
] nostrums, but also lending their names in extolling the merits 
I of their wares. No wonder then that foreign speculating 
I quacks make colossal fortunes, and thus the pharmacist is 
i defrauded out of his just profits in the exercise of his legiti- 
I mate calling. 
j There is a practice wdiich, I am given to understand, exists 
to a great extent in some places, and one instance of which has 
come under my own observation, and which I must here enter 
my protest against, and that is the chemist giving a bonus to 
the doctors for all his prescriptions. I consider it a practice 
unprofessional and dishonorable, alike to both, and also un- 
just, both to the patients and to other chemists. It is a sys- 
tem open to many and grave abuses. In a certain towm, not 
100 miles from Brisbane, the chemists are heavily handi- 
capped. The grocers there all sell patents at cutting prices 
! and the medical men all dispense their own medicines, wlt|^ 
[ one honourable exception, and he is an M.D. In one grocer 
store is kept a large stock of patents and drugs, surgical ap-^ 
pliauces, anemas, syringes, &c. In fact, nearly all that - 
usually kept in a well-appointed drug store. This departmen 
is presided over by an M.L.C., who is one of the prox:>rietorst 
Here a larger business is done, in dispensing and prescribing, 
than any two chemists in town. Of course they do not dc-i 
I pend on medicine for a living, but it serves as a draw^ to the 
I other departments of the establishment. 
I Three of the medical men have lately started open shops, 
I fitted up in the most showy and elaborate style. Twm of 
j these gentlement are in partnership, and one is the local hos- 
I pital surgeon. He is placed in the most extraordinary 
position as regards hospital management that I have ever 
heard tell of. He has complete charge of the institution, the 
visiting surgeons having been done away with. He also gets 
j as dispenser a salary of £300 per annum, a splendid resi- 
I dence, and the right of private practice, which surely ought 
