372 
The  New  Drugstore. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\     August,  1913. 
The  world  has  been  made  cleaner  and  life  safer  by  the  martyr- 
dom of  such  great  heroes  as  Carter,  Lozier,  Agrimonti,  Carrel, 
Reed  and  McClintoc. 
"  Greater  love  hath  no  man,  than  that 
He  will  lay  down  his  life  for  another." 
Preventive  medicine  cannot  reach  its  ideal  through  the  labors 
of  the  physician.  The  physician  is  trained  to  diagnose  and  treat 
disease — that  is  all  that  should  be  expected  of  him.  To  ask  a  phy- 
sician to  lay  aside  his  life  work  and  engage  in  a  limited  way  in  solv- 
ing the  problems  of  preventive  medicine  is  to  restrict  his  usefulness 
and  to  wrest  him  from  his  high  calling. 
Doctors  have,  up  until  now,  acted  as  Health  Officers  in  the 
community  in  which  they  have  lived.  They  have  done  noble  work, 
but  in  many  instances  they  were  wholly  unfitted  to  perform  the 
duties  that  the  position  demanded  and  time  thus  given  was  a  loss 
to  their  patients  and  to  their  profession. 
Now  we  know  that  every  community  needs  as  health  executive 
a  broad-minded,  trained  man;  a  leader — an  educator,  who  will  act 
as  superintendent  of  health.  For  such  a  work  few  of  the  ablest 
physicians,  or  surgeons  are  suited,  but  into  it  a  pharmacist  may 
find  a  foot-hold. 
Consider  a  few  of  the  activities  of  preventive  medicine: 
The  prevention  of  communicable  and  epidemic  diseases. 
The  elimination  of  disease-producing  features  from  industries. 
The  prevention  of  infant  mortality. 
Teaching  and  impelling  sanitation,  hygiene  in  personal  habits 
and  regard  for  one's  fellows. 
Mental  hygiene. 
Does  not  this  suggest  innumerable  openings  for  the  practice  of 
pharmacy  and  for  promotion  of  trade? 
A  writer  tells  of  a  house,  constructed  in  such  a  way,  that  the 
germs  of  disease  can  enter  only  with  difficulty  and  if  by  any  chance 
they  should  enter  it  may  be  easily  cleaned — a  disease-proof  house 
is  the  coming  dwelling.  Who  better  than  the  pharmacist  or  drug- 
gist could  equip  and  maintain  such  a  structure?  Soaps,  disin- 
fectants, insecticides,  dustless  dusters,  fumigators,  sputum  cups, 
scrubbing  brushes,  lotions  and  solutions — a  host  of  things  from  the 
drug  shop  will  be  consumed  by  the  inmates  of  the  new  diseaseless 
home. 
