12  Pharmacists,  Physicians  and  Nostrums.  {Am  j{°ur^rm 
are  called  for  and  retailed.  If  pharmacists  should  drop  the  nostrum 
traffic,  as  unwisely  insisted  upon  by  some  medical  journals,  or  should 
deliberately  deliver  to  other  branches  of  trade  the  sale  of  natural  or 
artificial  mineral  waters,  the  keeping  of  homoeopathic  pellets  or  other 
articles  which  by  long  usage,  have  been  associated  with  the  drug  trade 
as  it  has  developed,  outside  of  pharmacy  proper,  and,  perhaps,  against 
the  preference  and  interests  of  the  pharmacist,  the  result  would  certainly 
not  be  a  decrease  in  the  demand  and  use  of  nostrums,  mineral  waters, 
sugar  pellets,  fancy  medicines,  including  elixirs,  tonics,  medicated  candies, 
etc. ; — their  sale  would  only  pass  into  less  qualified  hands.  The  nostrums 
and  kindred  specialties  would  pass  from  the  show-windows  and  shelves 
of  the  drug  stores  to  those  of  the  grocer,  fancy-dealer,  confectionery 
store,  etc.,  and  would  there,  but  with  greater  eclat,  bear  evidence  of  the 
fact  how  much  more  confidence  a  large  part  of  the  American  people 
place  in  their  familiar  cure-all  nostrums  than  in  the  skill  of  the  average 
physician. 
Unbecoming  and  discreditable,  as  is  the  association  of  the  nostrum 
trade  with  pharmacy,  yet,  generally  speaking,  the  choice  of  the  smaller 
evil  from  the  two  alternatives  forced  upon  the  pharmacist,  justifies  him, 
in  the  interest  of  the  public,  in  retaining,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  controling 
the  trade  in  medicines,  in  whatever  legitimate  form  they  may  appear  in 
the  market.  The  correctness  of  this  view  is  sustained  by  the  fact, 
that  it  is  practically  applied  in  countries  whose  sanitary  regulations  are 
very  strict  and  are  regarded  as  models  of  wise  and  adequate  legislation. 
With  the  increase  of  travel,  the  American  quack  medicines  have  fol- 
lowed the  large  annual  exodus  of  our  substantial  classes  to  Europe,  and 
many  of  our  popular  nostrums,  in  consequence  of  the  great  demand, 
have  been  introduced  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and  in  Germany,, 
where  medicines  are  not  admitted  to  patent-rights  ;  but  no  sooner  had 
the  demand  called  forth  their  importation,  than  the  Imperial  govern- 
ment promptly  enacted  a  statute,  confining  the  exclusive  trade  in  this 
kind  of  "  Yankee  notions "  to  the  apothecaries,  in  order  to  submit 
them,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  the  control  of  a  competent  and  critical 
profession. 
For  the  present,  therefore,  it  may  be  safest  for  pharmacy  to  embrace 
in  its  scope  every  legitimate  system  and  mode  of  dispensing  and  reta  il 
ing  medicines,  while  the  attainments  and  character  of  the  pharmacist 
should  ever  remain  a  criterion  and  a  safeguard  both  to  the  public  and 
the  physician,  and  should  prevent  him  from  countenancing  imposture 
