37o 
The  New  Drugstore. 
(  Am  Jour.  PL  arm. 
1     August,  1913. 
Many  in  the  trade  do  not  hesitate  to  take  over  lines  that  are 
ephemeral  and  transient  and  bargain  days,  sales  weeks,  demonstra- 
tions are  features  of  the  up-to-date  drugstore. 
More  conservative  merchants  are  inclined  to  be  cautious  in 
handling  commodities  that  will  tend  to  crowd  out  legitimate  estab- 
lished trade;  a  passing  fad — a  new  fashion — may  bring  throngs  of 
undesirable  customers. 
The  wise  drug  merchant  still  keeps  a  drugstore  and  branches 
out  only  in  lines  naturally  allied.  He  finds  a  greater  measure  in 
handling  commodities  that  require  skilled  handling  on  the  part  of 
the  buyer  and  seller.  These  are  the  lines  that  give  greater  promise 
of  becoming  permanent  and  in  them  he  is  less  liable  to  meet  strong 
competition. 
The  drugstore  is  most  closely  associated  with  the  trend  of  gen- 
eral medicine  and  surgery — no  one  has  as  yet  written  down  the  full 
measure  of  the  progress  in  the  practise  of  these  arts  in  our  day. 
"  The  leaves  of  the  trees  of  science  have  been  shaken  for  the  healing  of 
the  Nations." 
Our  time  will  be  forever  memorable  for  the  changes  that  have 
followed  each  other  with  such  bewildering  rapidity  until  we  know 
not  what  to  expect  next.  The  Supreme  gift  in  these  days  is  to 
decrease  physical  suffering  in  man,  woman  and  child  when  stricken 
either  by  disease  or  accident  and  this  gift  has  wrought  a  most 
profound  change  in  pharmacy  and  in  the  drugstore. 
The  Apothecaries'  Laboratory  has  been  demolished  and  in  its 
place  we  see  the  chimneys  of  the  manufacturer.  The  drugstore  is 
the  purveyor  of  ready-made  products.  Out  of  a  few  things  have 
come  a  bewildering  number  of  substances  of  claimed  therapeutic 
value;  fifty  thousand  or  more  of  them  have  come  from  the  tar 
barrel. 
We  are  already  walking  with  the  vanguard  of  the  newer 
Materia  Medica — of  "  Sero  Therapy  " — of  "  Organic  Therapy." 
Serums,  toxins  and  antis,  immunizing  substances,  extracts  from 
horses,  cattle,  sheep,  goats,  dogs,  rabbits,  pigs,  fowls,  pigeons,  rats 
and  mice — fill  our  catalog  which  will  soon  resemble  the  passenger 
list  of  Noah's  Ark. 
Synthetic  chemistry  has  given  us  delicate  perfumes — dazzling 
colors — potent  drugs. 
Prediction  points  toward  a  time  when  the  food  of  our  tables 
