Am  Jour.  Pharm. 
Dec,  1884. 
Editorials. 
651 
and  largely  responsible  for  the  dram  business  done  by  some  pharmacists. 
He  has  no  sympathy  or  respect  for  that  class  known  as  "  Soda  Whiskey 
Pharmacists,"  who  in  addition  to  the  liquor  dealer  license  should  be 
required  also  to  display  a  sign  on  the  outside  front  of  the  establishment, 
advertising  that  department  of  trade,  so  demoralizing  to  pharmacy  and 
baneful  to  domestic  happiness. 
EDITORIAL  DEPARTMENT. 
The  Vending  of  Nostrums. — The  following  letter  has  been  received  : 
Mr.  Editor  : — At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  National  Wholesale  Drug- 
gists' Association  held  in  St.  Louis,  the  attendance  being  very  large,  perhaps 
no  subject  discussed  gave  rise  to  more,  or  as  much  attention  and  debate 
as  "  The  Campion  Plan."  It  is  hardly  worth  wbile  to  state  what  this  plan 
is,  as  the  readers  of  the  Journal  all  know  it  is  an  arrangement  entered 
into  between  the  manufacturer  of  proprietary  medicines  and  the  retailer  to 
secure  to  the  latter  the  full  retail  price  of  such  goods.  I  have  nothing  to 
say  of  the  "  plan,"  whether  I  think  it  wise  or  unwise,  but  what  I  do  want 
to  say  is  this,  Does  it  not  derogate  from  the  dignity  of  the  profession  to  have 
pharmacists  take  so  much  interest  in  the  sale  of  the  thousands  of  nostrums, 
secret  remedies,  with  which  the  market  is  now  flooded? 
There  were  present  at  this  convention  of  wholesale  druggists  a  very 
respectable  delegation  from  the  "National  Retail  Druggists'  Association," 
educated  men  in  their  profession,  some  at  least  prominent  members  of  the 
American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  and  it  did  appear  to  the  writer  that 
these  gentlemen — as  pharmacists — were  out  of  place  in  urging  so  strenu- 
ously the  adoption  of  any  measure  relating  to  quack  medicines. 
One  might  have  supposed,  in  listening  to  their  long-continued  and  elo- 
quent efforts,  that  the  chief  part  of  the  business  of  the  modern  apothecary 
consisted  in  buying  and  selling  proprietary  remedies,  secret  preparations, 
of  which  they  know  nothing  beyond  the  printed  name,  accompanied  by 
certificates  of  those  who  had  been  miraculously  cured  by  their  use. 
It  strikes  the  writer  that,  in  the  course  pursued  by  these  gentlemen,  the 
public  would  be  justified  in  looking  upon  their  action  as  an  endorsement 
of  the  importance  and  efficiency  of  the  nostrums  with  which  the  country 
is  flooded  at  the  present  time.  I  may  be  considered  old  fogyish  in  saying 
that  I  have  always  supposed  that  the  principal  tendency  of  a  sound  phar- 
maceutical education  was  to  discourage  and,  if  possible,  suppress  all  quack- 
ery and  quack  preparations. 
I  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  worthy  gentlemen  who  participated  in  the 
debates  on  the  subject  in  the  late  convention  at  St.  Louis  forgot  for  the 
moment  their  "high  calling"  as  members  of  a  truly  honorable  profession, 
and  lost  dignity  in  asking  the  convention  to  endorse  as  legitimate  the  very 
articles  against  which  they  should  set  their  faces. 
Oh  for  a  return  to  the  good  old  days  of  past  years,  when  "  patent  medi- 
cines "  comprised  less  than  a  dozen  articles,  and  even  these  were  handled 
with  a  sort  of  feeling  that  they  were  contraband  to  the  profession  of  a 
respectable  apothecary !  Has  it  come  to  this — that  all  the  years  of  hard 
study,  and  attendance  upon  lecture  after  lecture,  the  preparation  of  a  care- 
fully digested  and  highly  elaborate  thesis,  after  months  of  toil,  a  long-con- 
tinued brain -torturing  examination,  and  the  final  graduation,  and  obtain- 
ing of  the  coveted  u  parchment,"  is  all  to  end  in  handing  to  your  customer 
some  miserable  quackery  for  which  you  must  be  sure  to  obtain  the  highest 
