462 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [December 10, 1870. 
law, by all social law, and by tlie enthusiastic appro¬ 
bation of every citizen. 
No adequate educational instruction is at present 
available for the young American student in phar¬ 
macy. He must teach himself. There are, how¬ 
ever, noble exceptions at Philadelphia (of a high 
order), at New York, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, 
St. Louis and San Francisco, where lectures are 
delivered during the winter evenings on materia me- 
dica, chemistry and practical pharmacy, examina¬ 
tions held and diplomas conferred. In every in¬ 
stance, except the city of Baltimore, the attendance 
is entirely voluntary. There are no classes for 
teaching Latin, a knowledge of that language being 
considered unnecessary, as physicians now write 
their “ directions ” in English. 
Of trade customs, the most important is that the 
whole of the medicines prescribed by the medical 
profession are supplied entirely by the pharmacists. 
No physician, the generic term for the whole body 
of medical practitioners, sends out his own medi¬ 
cines. He invariably writes prescriptions. On the 
other hand, no pharmacist prescribes. He carefully 
and scrupulously abstains from doing so. And this 
is the universal and national custom in all the States, 
with few and rare exceptions on the part of depraved 
members in either profession. The effect on the 
welfare of pharmacy is manifest; a very large num¬ 
ber of stores, even in country towns, dispense thirty 
prescriptions in a day; and in the cities some thirty, 
others fifty, a hundred, and even a hundred and 
fifty. The physician is very jealous of his preroga¬ 
tive, and will occasionally endeavour to prevent a 
pharmacist repeating a prescription unless a second 
fee has been received by him. That a copy should 
be given for the use of the patient’s Mends, he re¬ 
gards as an outrage. No prescriptions are returned 
to the patient, but are preserved pasted in a book, by 
the chemist who first dispenses them. The physi¬ 
cian’s fee is generally twenty sliillings for a first 
consultation and eight sliillings for every subsequent 
one; lower fees are taken from the less affluent 
classes. The pharmacist generally charges about 
sixpence an ounce for medicines, that is, three 
shillings for a six-ounce mixture. 
The next important custom is that pharmacy is a 
free trade all over the United States for any one who 
chooses to enter its ranks. Any person may open a 
drug store anywhere, and boldly write over it phar¬ 
macist or apothecary. Although this state of tilings 
is greatly deplored by every respectable pharmacist, 
at present it is the law, with the exception of the 
city of Baltimore, and in a modified degree of one or 
two States; the only condition required by the Go¬ 
vernment being one it never suffers to be neglected, 
—that of taking out a licence. This is done at an 
annual charge of two pounds. If tobacco is sold, 
another licence is required, at the cost of one pound; 
and if spirits of wine and intoxicating beverages are 
dealt in, a further licence is necessary, at the cost of 
five pounds. All pharmacists take out an apothe¬ 
cary s and a spirit licence, and many a tobacco 
licence, thus paying to the State annually eight 
pounds. 
_ Throughout the United States everything is of a 
high money value,—according to the common phrase, 
“doubled since the war.” The rents paid by pharma¬ 
cists form no exception to tliis law. In a rising country 
town L'l 00 a year is a moderate rental, in the inferior 
and third-rate streets in the cities about the same. 
In the second-best streets £200 and £300 are paid in 
very numerous instances. In the leading thorough¬ 
fares of the chief cities, as New York, Boston and 
Chicago, the rents are commonly 1:500, and in the 
very best situations £?50, £1000 and even more per 
annum. For these enormous rentals the landlord 
only lets the shops with the basement, and is most 
unwilling to grant a lease. The rents paid by public 
companies, firms and particularly by drapers, are 
greatly in advance of these sums. 
When “ everything is dear” it follows that wages 
and salaries must be high. A boy on first entering 
a drug store receives about eight shillings a week, 
advancing as he improves to twelve and sixteen. On 
becoming a clerk he receives at first £00, then £80, 
then <£100 a year. When cliief clerk £140 to <£200, 
and in rare cases <£250. In every case he has to 
provide his own board and lodging ; for no pharma¬ 
cist lives at his place of business, or supplies meals 
to those in his service. 
The hours of business are very long all over the 
Union, generally from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. There are 
some cities where they are from G a.m. to midnight, 
every pharmacist in these cities, without exception, 
observing them. An inscription over one drug store 
announced, “ This Pharmacy open night and day.” 
All chemists’ shops are open all day on Sunday 
everywhere. Very few shutters are used; the inside 
roller blind is drawn down to shut a store, and 
drawn up to open it. Gas is subjected to a tax by 
Government, and is therefore exceptionally dear, 
costing in different cities from nine shillings to 
fourteen shillings per thousand feet. 
With heavy charges to defray, the returns of a 
pharmacist’s business are necessarily large. During 
the summer months heavy sums are taken for iced 
soda-wat3r and other gaseous beverages. In the 
West, in one moderately-sized city, several pharma¬ 
cists will take each £8 a day for draughts of soda- 
water and fruit beverages, of wliicli £5 will be taken 
in the evening. In the cities this sum is exceeded. 
There is one apparatus in the very best situation in 
Boston that is well-known to return £40 a day 
during hot weather. 
The general results of pharmaceutical trading are 
very high; £2000 a year is a moderate annual re¬ 
turn. Many stores return £6000 per annum, and 
in every large city there is at least one, if not two, 
pharmacists whose returns are £12,000 a year. 
The art of skilfully preparing medicines, whereby 
they become less nauseous in taste, more easily di¬ 
gestible, or more permanent and convenient in form, 
is largely practised under the name of “ elegant 
pharmacy.” Combinations attaining any of these 
results are in much request, and are welcomed 
eagerly by the physicians, who continually order 
them in their prescriptions. A large increase of 
business accrues to the ingenious pharmacist, not 
only from his own city and State, but from the whole 
Union. Orders for these preparations are entered 
one after another in an order book, from places as 
remote from the pharmacist’s city as St. Petersburg 
and Madrid, Vienna and Paris, Home and Chris¬ 
tiania are remote from London. 
In conclusion, Mr. Howden expressed his admira¬ 
tion of and gratitude for the cordial and generous 
welcome extended to him in every city by every phar¬ 
macist to whom he applied. There was invariably 
an earnest desire to supply abundantly every land 
of information that might be thought interesting to 
