256 
Esthetics  of  Labels. 
[Am.  Jour.  Phabm. 
\    June  1, 1871. 
abortive  attempts  which  resemble  monumental  tablets.  Double  lines 
in  the  border,  and  rounded  tops  will  give  a  label,  printed  in  black  ink 
especially,  a  tomb-stone  look  that  must  be  suggestive  to  the  patient. 
Hogarth  insisted  that  the  curve  was  the  line  of  beauty,  but  if  he  had 
seen  the  shield-shaped  labels  now  in  such  common  use  for  '  Elixirs' 
and  '  Syrups,'  he  would  have  retracted  his  assertion  instauter. 
Tastes  will  differ  of  course,  but  to  my  eye  these  pharmaceutic  escutch- 
eons are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  ugly.  In  fact,  almost  every  ir- 
regular form  of  label,  unless  its  matter  is  nicely  distributed  and  its 
type  selected  with  the  greatest  care,  is  apt  to  be  very  ungraceful. 
For  steady  use,  the  old-fashioned  oblong  label,  in  width  not  quite 
half  its  length,  wears  best  and  looks  best.  For  packages,  the  strip 
label,  long  and  narrow  is  preferable.  Well  printed  and  tied  on,  so 
that  its  upper  edge  lies  on  the  edge  of  the  fold,  it  sets  off  a  handsome 
bundle.  I  annex  a  form  of  strip  label,  used  by  me  for  some  years, 
which  has  the  merit  of  novelty  at  any  rate. 
Smith. 
RocHELLE  Salts. 
50  Hudson 
Troy. 
An  octagon  looks  well  on  pill-boxes,  and  is  a  relief  from  the  al- 
most inevitable  circle. 
But  it  is  in  the  printed  matter,  its  distribution  and  its  types  where 
improvement  is  sadly  needed.  Why  pharmacists  in  the  progressive 
age  should  persist  in  using  the  stereotyped  phrases  in  vogue  thirty  years 
ago,  the  same  old-fashioned  type,  the  venerable  mortar,  alembic  and 
retort;  why  we  should  do  these  things  because  our  fathers  did  so 
before  us,  is  a  mystery.  The  art  of  type-cutting  presents  us  with  so 
many  varied  forms  of  letters,  that  numberless  combinations,  novel 
yet  elegant,  can  readily  be  made.  The  chief  error  with  pharmacists 
is  a  tendency  to  over-crowd  their  labels  with  reading  matter,  one 
would  think  they  were  trying  to  advertise  all  their  wares  in  this 
small  space,  and  yet  the  truth  is,  beyond  the  publicity  of  name  and 
address,  the  label  is  not  an  advertisement,  but  merely  a  voucher  for 
the  contents  of  the  package.  A  few  lines,  terse  and  to  the  point,  are 
far  better  than  a  crowded  jumble  of  disjointed  sentences.  "  A  rivulet 
of  text  flowing  through  a  meadow  of  margin,"  should  be  the  rule,  as 
