4  Retail  Pharmacist  and  Pure  Drugs.    {Aj;n^  19^' 
to  carry  a  line  of  official  preparations  made  by  quite  a  number  of 
manufacturers.  While  it  is  true  that  the  competition  among  manu- 
facturers and  the  development  of  definite  standards  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia have  caused  the  production  of  a  line  of  assayed  drugs 
and  preparations  which  in  some  cases  at  least  are  superior  to  and 
more  uniform  than  those  manufactured  a  few  years  ago,  yet  even 
these  preparations  may  deteriorate  or  their  properties  change,  in 
some  instances,  depending  on  how  long  they  have  been  kept  in 
the  stock  of  the  manufacturer  or  jobber  as  well  as  on  the  druggist's 
shelf.  This  places  a  great  responsibility  on  the  retail  pharmacist, 
as  he  must  have  exact  information  regarding  the  value  of  drugs 
and  preparations  at  the  time  they  are  dispensed.  I  think  it  can 
safely  be  said  that  the  professional  pharmacist  usually  exercises 
a  great  deal  of  care  in  selecting  drugs  and  chemicals  of  good 
quality  and  in  the  making  of  galenicals  which  will  be  found  to  be 
efficient  by  the  physician.  Furthermore,  even  with  those  prepara- 
tions which  he  purchases  from  a  manufacturer,  he  will  usually  in 
one  way  or  another  make  sufficient  tests  to  satisfy  himself  that  they 
are  true  to  the  label,  so  that  there  probably  never  has  been  a  time 
when  the  professional  pharmacist  was  more  alert  and  more  desirous 
of  working  with  the  physician  than  at  the  present.  At  this  point 
I  wish  to  refer  to  an  article  by  Mr.  Henry  C.  Blair 3  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  well  worthy  of  perusal.  It  is  a  practical  exposition 
of  what  a  professional  pharmacist  is  capable  of  doing,  and  as  the 
article  was  prepared  essentially  in  the  interest  of  professional  phar- 
macy and  was  published  in  a  pharmaceutical  journal  it  will  stimu- 
late the  pharmacists  of  the  United  States  to  endeavor  to  attain  even 
higher  efficiency  in  the  professional  part  of  their  calling.  My  ob- 
ject in  mentioning  this  paper  here  is  to  show  to  physicians  that 
there  are  among  pharmacists  those  who  give  serious  thought  to  the 
question  of  the  purity  and  reliability  of  the  medicines  which  they 
dispense. 
It  is  probably  true  that  there  are  more  pharmacists  in  business 
than  are  necessary  to  supply  the  drugs  and  medicines  required  by 
the  public ;  still  the  number  of  strictly  reliable,  conscientious  or 
so-called  professional  pharmacists  probably  does  not  exceed  the  de- 
mand, and  by  a  little  inquiry  physicians  should  have  no  difficulty 
3  Blair,  H.  C. :  The  Manufacture  of  Galenicals  by  the  Retail  Pharma- 
cist— Its  Possibilities  and  Limitations,  Jour.  Am.  Pharm.  Assn.,  1912,  i,  17. 
