ON PHARMACEUTICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND REMUNERATION. 119 
Of course, no plan can ever create a universal tariff for all drugs and medi¬ 
cines. As for the retail, that being essentially the trade part of the business, 
must be guided by purely trade considerations, and these are regulated by so 
many distinct and differing circumstances that it is certain nothing satisfactory 
could be done. 
With regard to the charges on prescriptions, the great historic houses will al¬ 
ways be able to obtain any price they think fit to ask. The less fortunate 
houses must follow them as closely as circumstances will allow. Ko regulation 
will ever equalize, in every case, the London and provincial charges, nor, in¬ 
deed, can even London prices themselves be equalized. A long stride in this 
direction may be made if the Pharmaceutists in each locality or town will agree 
to a standard of prices, below which they will pledge themselves not to go. 
Each locality, whether London or provincial, knows best its own capabilities, 
and if those in each district would only do their best for the common good of 
all, the natural tendency of things would be to place us in a position to obtain 
very much better prices. 
But in order to do this, it is absolutely necessary that we should have 
'Confidence in each other. It is that much-to-be-regretted feeling of jealousy 
that mars all our attempts to improve our prospects. Why this is so it is 
difficult to explain,—but so it is, and this to an extent unknown in any other 
business. We see, on the one side, how the bakers, grocers, drapers, and 
others meet together, agree upon prices, and, what is more to the point, stick 
to their agreement. On the other side, we see in the pharmaceutical ranks 
'disunion, and neighbour arrayed against neighbour. I have known men who 
have lived in the same town, nay, in the same street, for years together, without 
so much as speaking, even meeting in a common assembly, and simply casting 
a furtive and suspicious glance at each other, evidently impressed with the no¬ 
tion that each one regarded the other as an interloper, a rival, one to be 
avoided at all hazards. The new Pharmacy Act has put us all in the same 
boat, and this is just the time to make a radical change in our manners, or, at 
any rate, to make a vigorous attempt to do so. The Pharmaceutical Society 
has already done wonders in this direction in a general way, but its ramifica¬ 
tions and influence have not been sufficiently felt in the provinces. The local 
Secretary of the Society in every place should consider it a part of his duty to 
bring about a better feeling ; he should institute occasional meetings to discuss 
and chat over, in a friendly way, little business matters that from time to time 
are continually cropping up ; and it is astonishing how much we may influence 
'each other, almost without knowing it, smoothing down those angular peculi¬ 
arities we all possess. For this reason the Society should be especially careful 
in its appointment of a local secretary. A post of so much power for good or 
evil ought not to be lightly given up to the first man who holds up his hands. 
In most places there is usually some one who, by common consent, is considered 
the leader or father of the profession, and he is precisely the one who should be 
induced to undertake the post. In large towns it might be desirable to appoint 
one or more sub-secretaries or district secretaries, whose business would be to 
take the initiative in promoting friendly meetings, as before suggested, in their 
several districts. Without some such leader, I fear, it would be quite hopeless 
to expect any particular individual to take the.matter upon himself. 
Another great help would be the adoption by all of a general price-mark, so 
that all prescriptions when first dispensed may be so marked that every suc¬ 
ceeding dispenser would be enabled to charge precisely the same. If this 
were faithfully carried out, and doubtless it would be by all respectable men, 
would go far towards allaying the popular feeling, caused by ever-varying 
charges, that the cost of physic is so little as to be difficult to charge at all, 
•the limit being the conscience of the dispenser. Now-a-days prescriptions 
