434 
PHARMACY  IN  GERMANY  AND  PRUSSIA. 
We  have  examined  free  competition  only  with  regard  to  the 
advantages  which  are  attributed  to  it.  It  presents  likewise  cer- 
tain inconveniences  which  are  inseparable  from  it.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  reduction  of  price  is  an  inevitable  consequence 
of  competition,  that  this  reduction  necessarily  causes  a  deteriora- 
tion in  the  quality  of  commodities,  and  that  it  is  the  most  effica- 
cious cause  of  all  the  frauds  and  adulterations  which  are  prac- 
tised in  commerce.  It  is  true  that  these  frauds,  though  culpable 
in  a  moral  point  of  view,  are  not  always  of  great  importance  to 
the  buyer  ;  when  practised  upon  materials  of  clothing  and  gene- 
ral manufacture,  the  difference  is  merely  in  the  durability  or  the 
intrinsic  value  of  the  article,  a  difference  which  may  perhaps  be 
compensated  for,  wholly  or  in  part,  by  the  cheapness.  But  when 
the  fraud  is  practised  upon  alimentary  substances,  and  above  all 
upon  medicines,  in  which  latter  moreover  it  is  as  difficult  to  recog- 
nize adulteration  as  it  is  easy  to  practise  it,  the  subject  acquires 
a  gravity  which  will  not  admit  of  any  compensation ;  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Government  to  take  every  means  for  its  prevention. 
Matters  of  industry  and  commerce  are,  in  fact,  matters  of 
money;  those  which  relate  to  the  sale  of  medicines  are  of  import- 
ance to  the  public  more  in  regard  to  health  and  life  than  pecu- 
niarily. 
The  Prussian  legislature,  by  rendering  in  pharmacy  the  com- 
mercial question  subordinate  to  the  medical,  by  preventing  com- 
petition, which  inevitably  leads  to  the  sale  of  bad  medicines,  by 
regulating  for  the  sick  the  price  of  drugs  whose  value  or  quality 
they  are  ignorant  of,  contributes  more  effectually  to  the  true 
interests  of  the  public  than  if  it  had  allowed  the  practice  of  phar- 
macy to  be  governed  by  the  principle  of  unrestricted  freedom. 
THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  PHARMACEUTICAL  ESTABLISHMENTS. 
It  would  be  very  far  from  the  truth  to  suppose  that  the  system 
upon  which  pharmacy  is  carried  on  in  Germany  in  any  way  tends 
to  diminish  the  spirit  of  emulation  among  the  pharmaceutists  of 
that  country,  to  introduce  negligence  in  the  management  of  their 
business,  or  to  lower  the  character  of  the  educational  studies. 
With  regard  to  the  general  mannerin  which  the  business  is  con- 
ducted, it  is  difficult,  except  from  actual  inspection,  to  form  any 
conception  of  the  order,  quiet  and  regularity  which  are  main- 
tained in  a  German  pharmaceutist's  shop.    These  establishments 
