June"!;  im^""- }  Esthetics  of  Labels.  257 
every  printer  will  tell  you.  Useless  verbiage  and  common  place 
phrases  should  be  avoided.  "  Fine  drugs  and  chemicals  constantly 
on  hand,"  physicians'  prescriptions  carefully  compounded,  &c.,  &c.," 
should  be  treated  with  the  respect  due  to  old  age — and  laid  aside 
If  we  are  good  pharmacists  these  antique  puffs  will  be  unnecessary  ; 
if  we  are  poor  ones,  such  stale  bait  will  not  lure  customers. 
The  titles  th^t  pharmacists  assume  are,  as  a  general  thing,  decided- 
ly inappropriate,  and  needing  amendment.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  words  pharmaceutist,"  or  pharmacist,"  are  more  nearly  cor- 
rect as  expressing  our  professional  stiitus,  although  some  contend 
that  these  should  be  peculiar  to  graduates.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
nomenclature  of  to-day  is  wrong.  "Druggist"  means  no  more  or  less 
than  a  seller  of  drugs,  crude  or  otherwise,  and  implies  no  skill.  It 
puts  us  on  a  level  with  any  tradesman  who  simply  sells  to  gain  ; 
the  word  should  be  confined  to  wholesale  dealers  only.  Even 
when  yoked  with  "  chemist,"  as  it  often  is,  it  will  not  pass  muster. 
How  many  of  us  can  lay  the  slightest  claim  to  being  chemists,  farther 
than  the  ordinary  requirements  of  every  day  business  will  warrant 
the  title ;  and  yet  we  coolly  force  ourselves  into  the  ranks  of  a  pro- 
fession that  requires  the  life-long  attention  of  a  Liebig,  a  Berzelius, 
a  Doremus,  or  a  Bridges!  "Dispensing  chemist"  is  equally  absurd 
or  even  more  so.  Who  for  a  moment,  aided  by  the  most  vivid  im- 
agination, could  picture  the  above  mentioned  analysts  dispensing  senna 
and  manna  or  mixing  a  dose  of  oil !  The  term  "  apothecary,"  is  so  ex- 
clusively English  and  refers  to  such  a  different  mode  of  doing  busi- 
ness, half  medical  and  half  pharmaceutical,  that  it  is  totally  inap- 
plicable here.  "  Pharmacist"  expresses  exactly  what  we  are;  is  not 
so  clumsy  as  "  pharmaceutist,"  looks  well  on  a  label,  and,  better  than 
all,  does  not  make  us  appear  like  the  jack-daw  of  the  fable,  in  bor- 
rowed plumes.  In  closing  this  homily,  it  seems  almost  superfluous 
to  hint  at  such  inelegancies  as  pasting  one  label  over  another,  or  over 
the  seam  of  a  bottle  ;  of  putting  it  on  crooked,  or  with  ragged  edges  • 
but  I  feel  that  most  of  my  pill-rolling  brethren  will  bear  me  out  in 
the  assertion  that  these  slips  are  too  often  made.  "  What  is  worth 
doing  at  all,  is  worth  doing  well,"  says  another  old  adage. 
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