A  janu°ary,Pi907m"}    Four  Things  Every  Druggist  Should  Know.       1 1 
they  are  absolutely  fundamental  to  the  wise  and  successful  conduct 
of  any  business.  Without  such  facts  at  command  one  is  completely 
in  the  dark  and  is  in  no  condition  to  guide  his  craft  skillfully  and 
well.  He  is  like  the  physician  who  attempts  to  treat  a  case  without 
first  taking  the  temperature,  feeling  the  pulse,  looking  at  the  tongue, 
examining  parts  of  the  body  which  may  be  affected,  or  inquiring  as 
to  the  patient's  symptoms. 
The  two  cases  are  exactly  parallel,  and  I  do  not  think  I  need 
dwell  further  upon  the  comparison  to  force  the  point  home. 
There  are  hundreds  of  druggists  in  this  country  to-day  who  are 
losing  money  on  their  business  and  who  will  not  discover  it  until 
the  sheriff  comes  along  and  sells  them  out.  There  are  thousands 
who,  not  deceived  to  quite  this  extent,  are  not  making  anything 
like  so  much  money  as  they  fancy ;  and  there  are  other  thousands 
who  might  make  much  more  than  they  do  if  they  only  understood 
the  exact  condition  of  the  patient  and  consequently  knew  where  and 
when  to  apply  the  corrective  treatment. 
PERCENTAGE  EXPENSE  VS.   GROSS  PROFITS. 
Let  me  take  up  the  four  things  which  I  have  declared  to  be 
essential  and  examine  into  their  necessity  with  some  detail. 
The  relation  between  the  percentage  of  expense  and  the  percent- 
age of  gross  profit  is  one  of  vital  significance.  It  throws  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  business  and  makes  improvements  possible  in  a  thou- 
sand ways.  An  address  could  be  delivered  on  this  subject  alone, 
but  I  must  content  myself  with  a  few  observations  only. 
Suppose  it  costs  30  per  cent,  to  do  business — 30  cents  to  sell  a 
dollar's  worth  of  goods.  Here,  then,  is  a  fact  which  should  be  con- 
sidered every  time  the  price  is  established  on  an  article  or  line  of 
articles.  It  is  of  course  perfectly  true  that  one  cannot  always  ad- 
vance the  selling  price  sufficiently  beyond  the  line  of  expense. 
Many  11  patents  "  have  to  be  sold  at  an  actual  loss,  when  the  cost  of 
selling  them  has  been  added  to  the  cost  of  purchasing  them.  Many 
other  articles,  particularly  in  cities  where  the  competition  of  the 
large  druggists  and  the  department  stores  keeps  prices  down,  have 
to  be  sold  at  very  close  margins  if  not  at  an  actual  loss.  But  above 
and  beyond  such  lines,  there  is  abundant  opportunity  here  and  there 
to  establish  selling  prices  which  will  counterbalance  the  losses  and 
make  the  gross  profit  average  up  satisfactorily. 
