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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
any claims whatever on their confidence, the most unreserved 
disclosures as to the state of the drug-trade, accompanied with 
expressions of unequivocal regret that they should be com- 
pelled to seem accessary to the frauds which are practised on 
the public, and with declarations of their willingness to co- 
operate in putting an end to them. 
The farther, then, we proceed with this inquiry, the more 
reason does there appear for suspecting that the adulteration 
of medicines, in the shape in which they are made up for the 
retail market, is of a piece with one of the common vices of 
trade; and that, some persons, although they do not with their 
own hands fabricate the spurious articles sent forth by the 
wholesale druggist, chemical manufacturer, and foreign mer- 
chant, are essentially not less instrumental in fabricating 
them, by requiring that they shall be supplied at a price for 
which genuine drugs notoriously are not to be obtained, and 
by receiving and dispensing what they know to be sophisti- 
cated. 
But this is not the only kind of imposition on the public 
for which some retailers have to answer. Other adulterations 
are also practised directly in their own establishments. Such, 
for example, is the chief source of many spurious galenical 
preparations, the greater part of which must necessarily be 
made by the retailer for occasional consumption. Not a few 
of these, indeed, are of low quality, simply because the crude 
drugs from which they are prepared are themselves inferior. 
But, besides, there can be no question, from such facts as those 
stated above in regard to laudanum, that the galenical prepa- 
rations often owe their inferiority to more direct interference 
on the part of the retail dealer. 
It does not seem necessary to inquire here into the several 
causes that have led to the practices among retailers now ad- 
verted to. But it is only fair to them to mention, that one 
obvious cause is the absurd propensity of many of their 
customers to value medicines rather by their cheapness than 
according to their quality and efficacy. It would be wrong 
