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PHARMACY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 
Certainly  the  question  arises :  How  can  a  drug-store  be  man- 
aged conscientiously  and  scientifically  without  inspection  by  the 
authoritiCvS  ? 
This  question  is  easy  to  be  answered ;  but,  in  order  to  draw  a 
parallel  between  the  United  States  and  Germany,  I  find  it  neces- 
sary to  enlarge  upon  the  subject  by  stating  that,  in  the  United 
States,  there  are  at  least  four  drug  stores  to  one  in  Germany. 
The  next  question  immediately  will  be  this  :  Where  one  drug- 
store hardly  can  make  a  living,  how  is  it  possible  that  four  of 
them  can  exist  without  resorting  to  dishonorable  means  ? 
But  have  we  not  in  Germany  numbers  of  drug»stores  which 
are  allowed  to  connect  other  articles  with  their  establishments, 
such  as  the  sale  of  spices,  sugar,  coffee,  tea,  &c.  ? 
I  always  bear  a  kind  remembrance  of  my  apprenticeship  in 
Germany.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  find  a  principal  who  pos- 
sessed a  warm  scientific  zeal,  to  whom  I  still  gratefully  owe  my 
lively  interest  in  our  profession. 
He  bought  himself  an  establishment,  to  which  was  attached  a 
considerable  trade  in  groceries,  spices,  &c.,  in  a  small  country 
place.  I  dare  fairly  say  that  full  one-half  of  our  sales  were 
from  these  articles.  But,  at  the  same  time,  I  enjoyed  the  most 
thorough  theoretical  and  practical  instruction.  It  is  not  too 
much  said  when  I  assert  that  all  officinal,  chemical  and  pharma- 
ceutical preparations,  with  the  exception  of  the  few  that  were 
allowed  by  the  Pharmacopoeia  to  be  purchased,  were  prepared 
in  our  laboratory. 
At  the  same  time,  the  dispensing  department  was  conducted 
with  the  most  scrupulous  exactness.  Our  establishment  enjoyed 
a  wide-spread  reputation,  and  it  frequently  occurred  that  pre- 
scriptions from  other  places  and  cojisiderable  distances  found 
their  way  to  us. 
Had  my  principal  and  tutor  been  restrained  only  to  the  strict, 
legitimate  retail  sales  and  prescriptions,  he  would  not  have  had 
the  means  to  answer  to  all  his  responsible  requirements  so  well 
in  keeping  up  his  perishable  stock  in  a  fresh  state,  much  less  to 
pay  the  interest  on  his  capital  if  he  had  needed  it. 
By  this  example,  I  try  to  explain  how  so  many  druggists  can 
exist  in  the  United  States. 
