482  Druggists,  Pharmacists  etc.  {^""i^ovXmT' 
store,  and  in  many  instances  the  hands  that  received  and  opened  the 
case  of  rhubarb,  opium  or  assafoetida  fresh  from  off  the  ship,  in  turn 
dispensed  these  remedies  in  pill-box  or  vial  to  the  suffering  invalid. 
Gradually,  as  all  this  has  changed,  the  retail  prescription,  or  as 
we  now  call  them,  dispensing  stores  became  numerous,  and  the  whole- 
sale druggists,  glad  to  lop  off  the  petty  details  of  their  retail  counters, 
have  ceased  to  supply  the  public  directly  with  those  small  quantities 
which  make  up  the  sum  of  the  retail  business. 
This  state  of  things  is  not  without  many  exceptions;  even  in  large 
cities  there  are  wholesale  stores  in  which  the  supply  of  medicines  to 
physicians  and  retailers  is  joined  with  the  practice  of  retailing  and 
even  with  the  compounding  of  prescriptions,  and,  as  we  all  know,  the 
distinction  becomes  less  and  less,  till  we  reach  the  class  of  stores  in 
which  the  sale  of  medicines  is  joined  with  that  of  paints  and  oils, 
books,  hardware  or  general  merchandize,  and  in  which  the  prescrip- 
tion counter  is  introduced  or  omitted,  according  as  the  neighboring 
physicians  may  or  may  not  have  created  a  demand  for  it. 
The  division  of  labor  having  given  rise  to  separate  wholesale  and 
dispensing  stores  does  not  stop  here,  but  the  wholesale  dealers  are  sub- 
divided into  importers,  brokers  and  jobbers.  The  importation  of 
heavy  and  costly  drugs  employs  large  capital  and  calls  into  activity 
talent  of  the  first  order;  it  is  often  conjoined  with  the  jobbing  busi- 
ness, but  the  tendency  is  to  separate  it  into  a  distinct  pursuit,  and 
indeed  to  subdivide  it  among  different  classes,  each  selecting  a  par- 
ticular line  or  sometimes  even  a  special  article  as  sufficient  to  employ 
the  attention  and  capital  of  a  single  house. 
The  business  of  the  broker  is  to  familiarize  himself  with  the  various 
sources  of  supply,  and  to  facilitate  the  distribution  of  the  leading 
articles  among  manufacturers  and  wholesale  druggists — a  useful  and 
indispensable  class  in  the  large  cities  on  the  seaboard  ;  they  are  no 
doubt  heard  of  for  the  first  time  as  a  class  of  druggists  by  many  who 
hear  me. 
Wholesale  druggists  or  jobbers  open  the  original  packages,  assort 
and  garble  the  drugs,  and  have  them  reduced  to  powder  or  otherwise 
prepared  for  the  purposes  of  the  retailers,  for  whom  they  collect  and 
furnish  the  vast  variety  of  merchandize  for  which  the  public  resort  to 
the  dispensing  store.  The  modern  druggist  does  not,  however,  as  did 
his  predecessor  of  the  olden  time,  require  to  have  his  own  laboratory, 
he  resorts  to  numerous  manufacturers  and  tradesmen,  who  have 
