Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
August,  1913.  J 
The  Nezv  Drugstore. 
373 
The  progress  of  preventive  medicine  is  advanced  by  means  of 
education,  which  means  publicity  and  advertising.  Who,  then, 
better  than  the  druggist,  can  lead  in  the  movement  against  the 
Great  White  Plague — the  Great  Black  Plague?  Who,  better  than 
he,  is  fitted  to  use  printers'  ink  to  spread  the  gospel  of  health  and 
to  supply  the  needs  that  the  propaganda  will  create? 
Pure  Food 
A  phase  of  the  newer  mode  of  living  is  the  movement  for  purer 
and  better  food.  The  drugstore  is  the  purveyor  of  food  stuff  for 
infants  and  invalids — why  not  distribute  all  kinds  of  food  for 
all  classes  of  patrons?  Packets  of  pure  milk,  pure  water  and  pure 
food  can  be  dispensed  as  readily  as  malted  milk  or  candy ;  certified 
milk,  pasteurized  milk,  guaranteed  milk,  involve  both  chemistry  and 
pharmacy. 
Surgery 
Many  of  us  who  are  not  yet  old  can  appreciate  the  evolution 
and  the  revolution  of  surgery  in  the  two  or  three  decades  just 
past.  It  has  moved  forward  a  thousand  years  in  a  day.  Proced- 
ures, startling  in  character  and  far-reaching  in  result,  have  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  quick  succession. 
The  period  ushered  in  by  Pasteur  and  Lister  made  a  rapid 
flight  from  crude  antisepsis  to  asepsis,  and  in  its  passage  left  its 
impress  upon  pharmacy  and  trade.  Dressings,  apparatus,  instru- 
ments in  new  forms  and  kinds  have  been  evolved  and  as  an  out- 
come the  drugstore  has  developed  a  most  notable  trade  in  cottons, 
bandages,  gauzes  and  numerous  types  of  dressings.  To-day  we  see 
the  opening  of  the  most  brilliant  chapter  in  the  history  of  surgery — 
we  seem  to  stand  in  the  morning  light  of  a  new  era. 
The  dominant  idea  of  the  Listerian  doctrine  has  been  to  pre- 
vent the  development  of  bacteria  in  wounds  and  to  remove  the 
products  of  infection.  Now,  the  natural  resources  of  the  patient 
are  to  be  considered — he  is  made  to  manufacture  within  himself 
phagocytes,  opsonins,  antibodies.  The  surgeon  does  but  little — 
the  resources  of  the  patient  are  developed  and  his  tissues  can 
manage  infection  better  than  the  knife  or  antiseptics  ever  did.  The 
surgeon  guides — nature  heals.  Wonderful  tales  are  told  of  the 
wizards  of  surgery,  with  their  operations,  grafting,  splicing,  trans- 
