PHARMACEUTICAL ETHICS. 139 
means and circumstances; but in no case should any trade casuistry induce him 
to lower the standard of excellence of whatever he may possess. 
The pharmaceutist who bears this rigidly in mind will be in no danger of 
degrading himself by the adoption of low and ruinous prices. Whoever has 
committed this transparent trade mistake must not afterwards blame the 
public for exacting the continuance of a state of things to which he has himself 
voluntarily stooped. On this topic I have great pleasure in giving you the 
opinion of your excellent treasurer, Mr. Brady :—“ The principle which ought 
to guide the pharmaceutist in the regulation of his charges is that remunera¬ 
tion should increase in proportion as the class of article makes greater demand 
on the knowledge obtained by his professional education. If he sells articles 
dealt in by other classes of tradesmen, he must submit to the same rate of 
profit. In drugs proper, which require an educated judgment, power of test¬ 
ing and the like, he is entitled to a much higher rate ; whilst in all matters of 
dispensing, his charges should be professional in their character, and not cal¬ 
culated on the cost of employed materials at all. We cannot materially in¬ 
crease the quantity of medicines sold by reducing the price; hence any of us 
endeavouring by low charges to increase his business, must recollect that he does 
it to the direct injury of the body, in reducing by so much the amount of money 
that might accrue from its legitimate practice. In large towns the responsi¬ 
bility of prices charged rests with one or two leading men, and if they are true 
to their professional instincts the calling can scarcely fail to prosper.’’ 
I agree with the above, and I may add that the pharmaceutist saves himself 
an immensity of trouble, and will most probably prolong his days, if he will 
once have the courage to adopt one uniform fixed price, else he is subjected to 
continual petty annoyance. Having determined to be the master of his own 
business, he will be content to abide by his own regulations, and not on the one 
hand place himself at the mercy of the competing pharmaceutist who trims his 
sail to every wind that blows, or, on the other, to the caprice of the customer, 
who not always truthfully asserts that he has obtained articles of definite com¬ 
mercial value at a starvation price. 
Hot only his regard to self-respect, but to his trade interest, will be his guide 
to a third ethical observance, viz. to supply the public with the precise articles 
for which they ask. This point strikes me not so much as a question in ethics 
as in a purely business light; but I have been requested to bring it forward, and 
I am bound to do so. 
The rule of every well-regulated establishment is to supply faithfully and im¬ 
plicitly whatever in the whole range of pharmacy a customer may require—to 
obtain it if not in stock, whether English or foreign, and to spare no pains that 
it shall be the identical thing desired. 
To do otherwise seems to me not to warrant so fine a phrase as a trade error, 
but a pure shop mistake. Does the customer want liquor bismuthi, Schacht, he 
is supplied from Clifton ; does he send for Browne’s chlorodyne, he receives that 
made by Mr. Davenport; if quinine be ordered, salicine must not be substi¬ 
tuted ; and so with the list of similar preparations, whether demanded as a re¬ 
tail order, or as forming an ingredient in a physician’s recipe. This course of 
action is due, not to any particular keen sense of honour, but to trade ex¬ 
pediency, precisely as a wise fisherman spreads a well-made net in order that the 
fish should not slip through. Any house in town or country adopting such a 
principle must and does gain a reputation which infinitely counterbalances the 
small extra remuneration to be made out of fictitious articles. Confidence 
brings trade, and trade puts money in the till,—a more practical result than 
might have been anticipated from the study of pharmaceutical ethics. 
This subject may have been proposed in consequence of some of its details 
* not having been clearly grasped. On the one hand, there is a great waste of 
