204  PHYSICIANS  AND  PHARMACEUTISTS  AND  THEIR  RELATIONS. 
or,  without  over-charging,  he  pays  the  per  centage  and  conse- 
quently loses  the  reward  for  his  labor.  In  both  cases  it  is  an 
extortion,  either  from  the  public  or  from  the  pocket  of  the  phar- 
maceutist. We  know  a  physician  who  obtains  25  per  cent,  of 
the  charges  for  the  medicines  prescribed  by  him,  and  his  patients 
have  to  pay  one-third  over  the  real  value  of  the  same,  charges 
for  labor,  &c,  included,  so  that  the  physician,  who  of  course  de- 
mands pay  for  his  consultations  and  visits,  may  pocket  the  agreed 
upon  one-fourth  of  it.  Others  we  know  obtain  20,  15,  12i  and 
10  per  cent,  in  this  way.  By  and  by  the  public  will  find  out 
that  they  constantly  have  to  pay  a  high  price  for  their  medicines 
and  will  call  in  another  physician,  for  the  first  one  would  not 
allow  them  to  carry  their  prescriptions  somewhere  else,  under 
the  plea  that  this  was  the  nearest,  if  not  the  only  establishment 
where  he  knew  his  prescriptions  were  put  up  accurately.  Ulti- 
mately the  taking  of  per  centage  must  prove  at  least  disadvan- 
tageous to  the  physician  and  to  the  apothecary  also. 
We  have  tried  to  give  an  outline  of  some  wrongs  clinging  to 
•the  practice  of  medicine  and  pharmacy;  in  doing  this,  our  object 
has  been  to  draw  the  attention  of  physicians  and  apothecaries  tov 
the  same,  not  as  to  something  new,  but  as  to  something  that  de- 
mands the  co-operation  of  both  professions  for  its  removal.  Once 
in  a  while  a  voice  has  been  heard  in  opposition  to  such  wrongs ; 
projects  to  subdue  them  have  been  published,  but  little  notice 
has  been  taken  of  them.  Could  not  the  medical  and  pharma- 
ceutical journals  of  the  country  take  up  the  subject  in  earnest — 
open  their  pages  for  a  discussion  of  these  evils,  and  the  propo- 
sitions for  their  suppression  ?  We  repeat  what  we  have  said 
before  : — in  many  cases  physicians  and  pharmaceutists  do  not 
pay  much  attention  to  their  mutual  and  reciprocal  interests.  It 
is  only  by  their  harmonious  action  in  general  that  their  voca- 
tions can  attain  that  esteem  and  influence  in  common  life  and 
in  science,  to  which  they  are  both  entitled,  and  the  commence- 
ment of  that  harmony,  we  think,  should  be  a  decided  stand 
against  the  grossest  evils,  which  are  apt  to  drag  science  down 
to  the  dust  of  humbug  and  quackery. 
New  Yorlc,  December,  1855. 
