570 
EDITORIAL. 
of  trade  extension,"  the  whole  occupying  more  than  thirty  pages  of  this 
Journal,  and  too  bulky  for  transfer.  The  writer  is  held  in  good  esteem 
among  his  fellow  members,  and  is  a  frequent  contributer  to  the  Pharma- 
ceutical Journal ;  his  style  is  peculiar,  forcible,  often  quaint.  He  is  evident- 
ly a  man  who  reads  much  and  thinks  as  he  reads.  At  the  risk  of  dis- 
placing other  matter,  we  offer  our  readers  the  first  section — the  Ethics  of 
the  Shop  :— 
li  Pharmacy  is  a  trade.  When  a  man  buys  goods  at  one  price  to  sell  them  at 
another,  gaining  the  advantage  of  the  difference  in  tariff,  being  further  in- 
fluenced by  the  known  law  of  supply  and  demand,  he  is  engaged  in  trade. 
When  he  buys  in  undivided  bulk,  to  sell  again  in  undivided  bulk,  he  is  a  mer- 
chant, but  still  engaged  in  trade.  When  he  purchases  in  undivided  bulk  to 
vend  in  large  though  in  divided  bulk,  he  is  a  wholesale  tradesman.  When 
he  buys  articles  in  a  divided  bulk,  to  sell  again  in  small  divided  bulk,  he  is  a 
retail  tradesman  ;  nor  does  it  make  the  slightest  difference  whether  he  sell3 
hats  or  Turkey  rhubarb,  nor  whether  the  seller  of  the  rhubarb  be  Sir  Hum- 
phry Davy. 
The  artist,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  professional  man.  One  painter  buys  so 
many  feet  of  canvas,  together  with  so  much  paint;  he  places,  possibly,  upon 
that  canvas  something  which  may  not  increase  its  value.  A  second  buys  the 
same  amount  of  canvas,  inch  by  inch,  on  which  he  puts  the  same  amount  of 
color,  ounce  for  ounce,  and  the  result  may  be  "The  Immaculate  Conception." 
He  places  on  the  canvas  that  which  he  cannot  buy — God  gave  it-  him,  and 
without  any  phrase  of  poetry  he  exercises  the  gift  divine.  Neither  is  the  true 
artist  influenced  by  the  necessities  of  competition,  nor  by  the  trade  fluctuation 
arising  from  supply  and  demand. 
A  hundred  artists  more  or  less  would  not  alter  his  position  ;  a  hundred 
paintings  on  the  same  subject  would  not  detract  from  the  merit  of  his  own. 
Its  value  is  intrinsic,  and  not  relative.  But  the  pharmaceutist  buys  his  stock, 
whether  of  drugs,  chemicals,  or  sundries,  in  order  to  sell  again — he  is  a 
tradesman.  • 
But  other  influences  are  at  work  to  modify  the  general  fact — the  awakening 
claims  of  universal  education,  the  long  unfaltering  teaching  of  our  own 
Society,  the  actual  pressure  from  without.  Then  there  is  the  influence  of 
locality  :  the  West  End  customer  will  have  more  than  shop  dexterity,  and  in 
my  own  neighborhood  the  mere  tradesman  would  find  himself  gazetted. 
There  is  the  influence  of  individual  character.  The  master,  fortunately  for 
himself  and  those  around  him,  has  higher  than  trade  instincts,  from  which  cir- 
cumstance his  trade  assumes  more  or  less  a  strictly  professional  character; 
but  it  no  more  ceases  to  be  a  trade  than  the  orchid  which  counterfeits  so 
Strangely  shapes  of  natural  beauty  ceases  to  be  a  plant. 
Never  forgetting  the  essentially  trade  nature  which  belongs  to  pharmacy,  we 
at  once  come  to  the  first  ethical  rule  of  the  pharmaceutist,  namely,  the  neces- 
sity for  the  absolutely  genuine  character  of  his  drugs.  No  drug  or  remedy 
should  be  admitted  into  his  shop  other  than  that  which,  in  case  of  dangerous 
illness,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  supply  to  the  inmates  of  his  own  family  circle. 
He  cannot  be  expected  to  keep  the  whole  range  of  Materia  Medica,  nor  is  he 
to  be  blamed  for  applying  for  eclectic  remedies  elsewhere.  This  is  an  affair  of 
means  and  circumstances  ;  but  in  no  case  should  any  trade  casuistry  induce 
him  to  lower  the  standard  of  excellence  of  whatever  he  may  possess. 
The  pharmaceutist  who  bears  this  rigidly  in  mind  will  be  in  no  danger  of 
degrading  himself  by  the  adoption  of  low  and  ruinous  prices.  Whoever  has 
committed  this  transparent  trade  mistake  must  not  afterwards  blame  the  pub- 
lic for  exacting  the  continuance|of  a  state  of  things  to  which  he  has  himself 
voluntarily  stooped.  On  this  topic  I  have  great  pleasure  in  giving  you  the 
opinion  of  your  excellent  treasurer,  Mr.  Brady: — "The  principle  which  ought 
to  guide  the  pharmaceutist  in  the  regulation  of  his  charges  is  that  remunera- 
