The relation of pharmacy to the state : delivered to the members of the conference on August 22nd, 1882 / by the President, John Attfield.

  • John Attfield
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The relation of pharmacy to the state : delivered to the members of the conference on August 22nd, 1882 / by the President, John Attfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/24 page 12
    is already going on. Afterwards tliere will be another. Some day what remains of the trading retail druggist’s trade in drugs will flow away from him to the counter of the manufacturing retail druggist, even though the latter be charging higher prices ; for in proportion as purchasers find they cannot judge for themselves, they will go to those who can judge for them. Then if the trader has cultivated other trades, he will have them to fall back upon. Fortunately, in the long run the fittest must survive: the fittest tradesman who is only a tradesman, and the fittest pharmacist who is a tradesman and a professional man too. Does the pharmaceuti¬ cal apprentice of to-day desire future pharmaceutical success P Let him master the principles of his art. Let him practically learn how, by the aid of chemistry and botany, to test the quality of most of the articles he works with, and how to manufacture what cannot be tested. Broadly, as a matter of self-interest and sound policy, the prepara¬ tion of medicinal compounds by a few druggists only, and their mere distribution by the many, is a practice to be deprecated. Clearly, too, it is to the interest of the public that every druggist should be really, as well as nominally, a druggist,—a man who either tests or manu¬ factures every one of his own preparations. All efforts to secure future drug-dealing and drug-working to druggists must be founded on personal professional knowledge possessed by every pharmacist. A medical practitioner purchasing drugs at all, will surely prefer to obtain them from the neighbouring druggist rather than from a distant source, if he knows that the druggist can give the guarantee of genuineness that he himself cannot provide, and if they can be obtained at a reasonable price. May he not in many cases go further, and give up dispensing bodily, if in the matter of trust¬ worthiness of materials the druggist can beat him, and if, of course, neither he nor his patient suffer too severely in pocket ? For the practitioner will thus get that personal guarantee which should be the druggist’s most treasured possession, a guarantee which must, in the nature of things, be stronger when afforded by a neighbour than when offered by the distant dealer, especially when in the latter case it is only afforded at second hand by a price list or a traveller. Contrast the value of the guarantee of a retailer who is also a maker, with that of a druggist who can only trust to the respectability of a maker separated from him by two or three different agents and by scores or hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. Some preparations will doubtless always be better made by one man than by another, or by few persons rather than by
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3