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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
must be shared between them and their customers. Whether 
such is really the case or not, it is not easy to decide. But 
I shall state the facts as they were communicated to me by a 
wholesale druggist of eminence in London, who authorized 
me to make them public. The subject of his communications 
was scammony, which he allowed is very rarely to be had pure 
from any wholesale establishment. The reason he explained to 
me, was, that many of his customers in the retail trade, — and 
his own case was likewise that of all his brethren, — would 
not give a fair price for a pure article; that they did not ask 
for a pure drug, but for one of a particular price, often greatly 
under what it could be purchased for from the importer; and 
that on communicating with his Levant correspondent, and 
informing him what his customers wanted, he received for 
reply, that no Levant merchant could furnish good scammony 
at the prices proposed, and that it was therefore mixed up by 
himself and others with various proportions of chalk, to suit 
the varying demands of English dealers. The foreign mer- 
chant, whose letter I saw, complained of the necessity to 
which he was thus reduced of disgracing his occupation; sent 
specimens, five in number, of his several adulterations, 
specifying the proportion of chalk and of pure scammony in 
each; and requested his London correspondent to make the 
facts as generally known as he could to the medical profession. 
As one step towards executing his instructions, the informa- 
tion and specimens were made over to me; and on analysing 
the latter, I found them to be composed almost exactly as 
represented. 
It may be strongly suspected, then, that some retailers are 
responsible for adulterations of the kind now alluded to; — 
that by unreasonably forcing down the price of some foreign 
drugs, they in some measure compel the merchant abroad to 
prepare spurious articles; which they receive, knowing them 
to be spurious. 
Another quarter in which it may be supposed probable 
that adulterations are practised, is in the establishments of 
