AMERICAN  PHARMACEUTICAL  ASSOCIATION. 
389 
requisite  knowledge  of  practical  pharmacy,  it  is  no  uncommon  habit  to  buy  their 
preparations  ready  made,  except  the  simpler  ones,  and  at  the  lowest  price,  and 
the  business,  thus  shorn  of  its  most  interesting  department,  the  application  of 
chemistry  to  the  conversion  of  crude  drugs  into  medicines,  becomes  a  mere  store 
keeping,  where  the  drug  clerk  is  kept  putting  up  and  selling  parcels  and  bottles 
of  medicines,  the  preparation  of  which,  and  the  beautiful  reactions  often  con- 
cerned in  their  manufacture,  he  is  as  complete  a  stranger  to  as  though  they  did 
not  exist.  Is  it  any  wonder  then  that,  after  one  or  two  years  service,  the  ap- 
prentice should  fancy  that  he  had  learned  the  business  as  a  seller  of  drugs  and 
chemicals,  and  becoming  uneasy  at  the  prospect  of  a  four  years  term,  breaks  the 
slender  connection  that  binds  him  to  his  employer  and  starts  out  as  a  fledged 
clerk  !  In  these  days  of  manufacturing  pharmaceutists,  when  most  of  the  nicer 
preparations,  from  Dover's  powder  to  fluid  extracts,  are  to  be  bought  ready  made, 
the  temptation  to  purchase  them  is  great,  even  to  the  qualified  principal,  who 
thus  saves  himself  the  responsibility  and  trouble  attending  their  manufacture; 
but  he  is  apt  to  forget  the  injustice  thus  done  to  his  proteges,  who  are  thus  de- 
prived of  the  important  practical  knowledge  only  to  be  gained  by  becoming 
familiar  with  the  manipulations  they  involve.  Having  abandoned,  to  a  large  ex- 
tent, the  making  of  these  preparations,  such  apothecaries  are  ready  but  too  often 
to  accept  the  agency  of  the  numerous  quackeries  that  abound  to  swell  their  sales, 
and  from  this  are  led  into  the  origination  of  secret  compounds  and  become 
quacks  themselves.  Further,  they  are  induced  to  trench  on  the  business  of  the 
tobacconist,  and  the  variety  storekeeper,  by  keeping  their  wares  ;  and  sometimes 
to  a  considerable  amount. 
So  long  as  this  abandonment  of  the  legitimate  duties  of  the  pharmaceutist  is 
permitted,  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  apprentices  will  feel  that  interest  in  the  busi- 
ness they  have  embarked  in  that  is  excited  when  they  are  called  upon  to  carry 
out  the  various  chemical  and  pharmaceutical  processes  that  properly  belong  to 
every  well  conducted  apothecary's  shop. 
Familiarity  with  these  processes,  in  which  the  phenomena  of  mechanical 
division,  solution,  extraction,  distillation  and  other  operations  are  practically 
studied,  is  the  true  basis  upon  which  to  build  the  knowledge  required  by  a  skilful 
extemporaneous  pharmaceutist,  or  prescriptionist,  whose  vocation  includes  the 
highest  department  of  the  art  of  an  apothecary.  It  is  indeed  the  only  basis  upon 
which  it  should  repose.  Making  the  officinal  preparations  is  therefore  an  indis- 
pensable part  of  pharmaceutical  education,  and  no  apothecary,  whose  scheme  of 
business  does  not  include  at  least  a  considerable  portion  of  them,  can  efficiently 
educate  those  under  his  care. 
jv.  It  may  be  said  that  the  preparation  of  the  strictly  pharmaceutical  compounds  by 
the  manufacturer  of  character  more  surely  supplies  the  dispenser  with  medicines 
of  unexceptionable  quality.  This  is  only  partially  true,  because  the  institution 
of  such  a  branch  of  business  by  the  qualified,  soon  calls  into  its  scope  unqualified 
and  careless  men,  who  look  at  profit  and  not  at  therapeutic  power  in  the  pur- 
chase and  treatment  of  drugs.  Besides,  the  temptation  to  expand  their  business 
is  a  strong  inducement,  even  to  the  skilful,  to  make  quantities  of  fugitive  and 
easily  decomposable  compounds,  which  are  forced  on  distant  markets,  where 
they  are  to  be  dispensed,  and  where,  too  often,  the  dispenser  deals  them  out  in 
full  assurance  of  their  excellence.  The  gradual  effect  of  this  custom  on  the  dis- 
penser is  to  render  him  tributary  to  the  druggist  and  manufacturing  pharmaceu- 
tist for  many  preparations,  the  efficiency  of  which  he  is  bound,  by  the  highest 
calls  of  duty,  to  be  personally  assured  of. 
Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject  we  would  urge  a  careful  consideration 
of  these  hints  by  those  of  the  brethren  to  whom  they  apply,  that  they  may  see 
whether  their  duty  to  themselves,  to  their  apprentices  and  assistants,  and  to  the 
medical  profession  does  not  require  them  to  prepare  all  the  officinal  medicines 
that  their  shops  will  admit  of  (that  are  prone  to  deterioration,  or  are  difficult  to 
test.)  In  this  category  certain  of  the  extracts  and  of  other  classes  of  prepara- 
tions are  not  included,  where  the  use  of  steam  or  a  vacuum  pan,  or  some  other 
peculiarity  of  the  process  may  be  required,  not  at  the  command  of  the  apothecary. 
There  are  many  chemicals  that  can  be  easily  made  in  the  smallest  apothecary 
