Am.  Jour.  Pharru.  \ 
December,  1901.  / 
Pharmaceutical  Progress. 
583 
have  judgment  enough  to  attend  to  the  furnace,  deliver  and  ship 
goods.  Your  janitor  must  be  ,a  janitress,  because  a  woman  will 
not  be  sent  out  on  errands  and,  besides,  women  are  better  cleaners 
than  men.  She  can  also  do  the  laundry  work  of  the  establishment ; 
keep  plenty  of  clean  towels  and  the  sleeping- room  in  order.  You 
must  have  a  second  woman,  an  experienced  dishwasher,  to  keep 
your  laboratory  in  order,  bottles  washed  and  utensils  cleaned.  A 
good  woman  in  this  position  is  not  only  a  comfort  but  a  money- 
saver  as  well,  since  she  breaks  so  very  much  less  and  cleans  so  very 
much  better  than  boys.  Your  receiving  and  stock  clerk  must  be  a 
woman,  because  she  will  remain  in  the  position  at  a  moderate 
salary,  and  will  become  more  and  more  valuable  with  each  year's 
service. 
Compare  this  well-ordered  detail  with  remembrances  of  pro- 
prietors and  assistants  wasting  their  valuable  time  washing  gradu- 
ates and  mortars  or,  with  the  boys  and  clerks,  sweeping  the  store, 
washing  windows  or  sweeping  pavements,  as  of  old,  and  you  will 
see  unmistakable  evidences  of  progress.  The  pharmacist  doing 
business  to-day  who  does  not  appreciate  the  helpfulness  of  educated 
and  college-trained  assistants  is  most  unfortunate.  He  has  either 
never  seen  the  real,  or  is  so  incompetent  himself  as  to  be  unable  to 
recognize  it. 
Modern  drug-store  methods  comprehend  immense  variety,  great 
length  and  breadth.  With  even  so  much  science  behind  him  the 
pharmacist  of  today  must  make  method  and  sometimes  straighten 
the  way.  If,  perchance,  he  sells  oxygen  he  may  wish  to  be  assured  of 
its  purity.  He  deems  its  estimation  an  easy  task,  but  finds  upon  trial 
that  phosphorus  will  not  burn  spontaneously  in  pure  oxygen.  Strange 
but  true.  He  then  somewhat  ingeniously  applies  the  electric  spark ; 
the  result  is  generally  disastrous  to  his  glass  vessel  or  unsatisfactory, 
because  of  the  extreme  violence  of  the  reaction.  If  the  phosphorus 
is  introduced  into  a  mixture  of  equal  parts  of  atmospheric  air  and 
oxygen  the  phosphorus  will  continue  to  oxidize  slowly  until  all 
oxygen  is  combined,  when  the  result  is  easily  obtained  by  deduct- 
ing the  amount  of  nitrogen  contained  in  the  quantity  of  air  used. 
Several  trials  proved  the  constancy  of  the  proportion  of  the  two 
gases  in  atmospheric  air  ;  it  varies  but  very  little  from  the  accepted, 
one  to  four.  The  peculiar  behavior  of  phosphorus  in  pure  oxygen 
seems  to  be  due  to  the  sudden  formation  of  a  coating  of  oxide  in 
such  condition  as  to  effectually  protect  the  phosphorus. 
