Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Oct.,  1884. 
The  p  and  the  P. 
533 
which  ethical  questions  are  decided  by  persons  whose  immature  age  dis- 
qualifies them  from  forming  an  intelligent  judgment.  Age,  and  quantity 
of  work,  among  the  details  that  are  under  consideration,  can  alone  furnish 
the  varied  experience  requisite  to  determine  a  question  of  ethics  in  rela- 
tion to  pharmacy  or  anything  else,  and  more  than  usual  care  should  be 
exercised  in  allotting  queries  of  that  nature.  But  this  is  in  some  measure 
digressive. 
The  line  bounding  the  duties  of  the  pharmacist  on  one  side  overlaps  that 
of  the  physician,  and  through  his  trade  connection  on  the  other  side,  that 
•of  the  public.  The  inexperienced  pharmacist,  as  well  as  the  immature 
physician,  finds  it  difficult  to  segregate  the  points  in  the  overlap  that  con- 
stitute his  portion,  and  in  such  cases  there  is  a  constant  outstepping  of 
province,  with  a  feeling  of  resentment  at  aggression  on  both  sides. 
The  customer  at  the  prescription  counter  can  see  no  reason  why  he  can- 
not manipulate  the  pestle,  or  apportion  the  powders,  as  well  as  the  phar- 
macist, and,  in  the  case  of  mixtures,  "anybody  can  pour  a  liquid  into  a 
bottle."  This  assumption  of  competency  on  the  part  of  the  average  indi- 
vidual is  exemplified  in  the  demand  for  "  English  labels."  The  young 
man  entering  a  drug  store  is  a  true  member  of  the  public,  and  his  first  and 
most  disagreeable  task  is  to  learn  that  he  is  not  competent.  The  less  con- 
ceited and  self-opinionated  he  is  the  sooner  he  becomes  really  a  pharma- 
cist. There  are  some  natures,  however,  naturally  imbued  with  a  distaste 
for  labor  that  is  not  productive  of  immediate  and  tangible  pecuniary 
results.  Such  can  never,  except  in  cases  of  exceptional  mental  ability,  rise 
above  the  level  of  mere  tradesmen,  and  we  have  a  class  of  apothecaries 
differing  from  the  general  public  only  in  the  point  of  greater  thickness  in 
the  skin  of  their  special  knowledge.  It  is  to  these  hybrids  that  our  pro- 
fession must  charge  many  of  the  impediments  placed  in  the  way  of  elevat- 
ing the  standard  of  our  profession.  No  act  of  theirs  ever  intimates  to  the 
public  that  the  profession  of  pharmacy  requires  any  more  intelligence  than 
the  engineering  of  a  peanut  stand.  They  will  cull  from  the  various  jour- 
nals, or  perhaps  "  patent  outside  "  newspapers,  formulas  for  a  "  blood  puri- 
fier," cough  syrup,  horse  powder,  etc.,  and  offer  them  to  the  world  as  the 
most  "  wonderful  discoveries  of  the  present  age."  In  this  connection,  the 
efforts  of  certain  houses  at  supplying  apothecaries  of  this  class  with  ready- 
made  clothes  (I  beg  pardon,  I  forgot;  they  keep  drug,  not  tailor  shops),  I 
mean  ready-made  patent  medicines,  in  form  though  not  in  name,  is  a 
direct  blow  at  the  advancement  of  pharmacy.  This  is  a  far  greater  evil 
than  the  identification  of  a  certain  remedy  with  a  given  house,  as  exem- 
plified in  ordinary  patent  medicines.  It  places  the  pharmacist  directly 
upon  the  same  plane  as  the  vender  of  sugar  or  coffee,  or  in  fact  below, 
as  he  becomes  simply  an  irresponsible  dealer  in  sealed  packages.  The 
patent  medicine  man  may  have  spent  years  of  time  and  a  large  amount  of 
money  in  perfecting  his  remedy,  or  he  may  not  have  spent  either.  He  has 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  The  apothecary,  however,  that  deals  in  this  class 
of  remedies  has  no  such  benefit.  We  know  that  the  only  time  and  thought 
expended  is  in  driving  a  purely  commercial  bargain,  and  he  is  entitled  to 
no  more  consideration  as  a  scientist  than  the  boy  that  sells  a  pound  of  old 
