PHARMACY IN GERMANY. 
313 
To each district is allowed a number of apothecaries pro- 
portional to its population; averaging, in the greater part of 
Germany, one apothecary to 5000 persons. The shops are, 
of course, principally in the towns, and this might give rise 
to false impressions. Thus, in Giessen, with only 8000 in- 
habitants, there are three apothecaries; but the surrounding 
country is very densely inhabited. Round Darmstadt the 
population is not thick, and therefore, though with 22,000 
inhabitants, it has but five. Gottingen, with 10,000, has only 
two, the neighborhood being but thinly covered with people. 
There are, however, real exceptions to this average. Thus, I 
was informed by Professor Dulk, that in Prussia Proper, and 
in Pomerania, owing to the scattered nature of the population, 
there is but one apothecary to 8 or 10,000. And in the 
Rhine province of Prussia, the other extreme prevails, for 
there are not more than 2000 people to one apothecary, 
owing to the law having allowed, during the occupation of 
the French, an unlimited number of shops, and many of them 
remaining still in existence. 
In general, however, there are 5000 people to one apothe- 
cary; and no person is allowed to deprive him of them; no 
retail druggists are permitted; none but an apothecary can 
sell medicinal drugs. The apothecaries, themselves, are not 
allowed to compete, at least by reduction of prices. Every year 
a price list for drugs is published by authority; and no apothe- 
cary is allowed to deviate from the prices contained in it, 
which are placed so as to give a very high rate of profit; 
indeed much higher than could be obtained here. 
When a district, from improvements of manufactures, or 
otherwise, increases in population, a corresponding number of 
new apothecaries' shops are opened by the government; or 
what is the same thing, permission is given to so many of 
those candidate apothecaries whose names are first on the list, 
to open shops in such places as require them. This is the 
one way of getting into business. The other is, that the shops 
in the already peopled districts, from time to time, fall into 
the market, either from the death of their previous possessors, 
