THE PHARMACEUTIST AS A MERCHANT. 
657 
pline ; remember, that the example by word and deed of a proprietor will produce lasting 
effects on the impressible characters of your young apprentices, bearing fruit in future 
habits and business ways. 
Business tact is shown again in keeping pace with the age in which you live—to be 
ready with all the innovations, novelties, and sensations in the medical world—experi¬ 
mentally, of course, at first; and, while you do not endorse such necessarily by your own 
approval, you should be ready to supply them. 
It is shown in the careful selection of the stock of goods, particularly where means 
are limited, watching the demand so as to apportion it correctly, so that no overplus of 
some items may lessen your ability to keep a full assortment of goods. 
It is shown in guiding the market yourself, not letting it guide you ; strive to lead 
the tastes of your customers towards those kinds or qualities of goods which you know 
to be best for them, better than they themselves do. I hold this to be a duty which 
none of us should be indifferent to. 
Business tact is shown in so individualizing your business that everywhere possible 
the articles sold by you should represent you , not some one else ; make everything your¬ 
self that it is at all practicable for you to make, and if your skill is such that whatever 
you make represents the best of like articles, then each item of such sold is a standing 
advertisement for you to win additional trade. I am a firm advocate of the practice of 
each pharmacy being a producing one ; it is no credit to a man, who has been well edu¬ 
cated in this art, to be contented to live long and sell only the products of others’ indus¬ 
try, when he might better make his own, increasing his business and reaping the ad¬ 
ditional portion of profit thereby. 
Business tact so displays goods as to make the most of them, so in a measure to help 
them sell themselves ; therein neatness and taste go hand in hand with industry. 
While business tact will lead the merchant, desiring success, to deal in all the articles 
of his line that the public calls for, there are in ours very many things that, which to 
do, is more or less to compromise with the right and wink at the wrong,—the alcoholic 
stimulants under the guise of medicated bitters ; the regulating remedies, so advertised 
as to furnish a ready means for criminal purposes ; add to these almost the whole list of 
the so-called patent medicines: all these the intelligent pharmaceutist knows are per¬ 
nicious in their effects upon the public health, and yet how feeble are his efforts to retard 
their sale, how weak his protest against their use. If you do deal in such, be indepen¬ 
dent enough to make the sales of them depend upon the natural law of demand, and not 
on your efforts ; do not, above all things, ever endorse them with breath of praise. 
About advertising, that is also a legitimate means of making yourself known, but how 
best to do it to reap the largest returns for the smallest proportionate outlay is an art in 
itself, and one that each must learn by himself. 
After all said about business tact, business success w r ill be dependent upon keeping 
and selling those qualities of goods, in every department of your trade, that are intrin¬ 
sically good, and he who takes, in that respect, the highest stand will reap the greatest 
reward. 
The greatest reward lies not only in money gains, but in reaching that honourable 
position in community wherein you are looked upon as a public benefactor,—in seeking 
honest profits and not being a Shylock. It gladdens me to remember professional friends 
who are poor, perhaps, in pocket, but rich in possessing the respect and affection of their 
neighbours, while my mind’s eye rests on an occasional one who is poor in everything 
that can make a man poor. 
The economical administration of business affairs will commend itself to all who mean 
to win success ; and, while a commendable share of enterprise is to be advised, a proper 
mixture of caution is quite as valuable. 
Men of scientific tastes are not apt to be good financiers; such tastes render them 
careless of money ; they rarely understand economy in business, and in business they 
trust their finances to others not vitally interested. The pharmaceutist should know at 
all times how he stands in credit and purse; “ cutting your coat according to your cloth,” 
and the host of similar commercial maxims, commend themselves forcibly to his atten¬ 
tion. 
Great is the field for the inventive faculties to play in pursuit of pharmacy—devising 
improvements in formulae, shortening methods, improving apparatus, introducing new, 
unique and original designs in labels, bottles, and various similar things. Don’t be a 
