A THE PUBLIC PURSE. S to the policy of municipal competition with the ordinary channels of trade there can be no difference of opinion. It has always been found harmful for the municipality to employ public funds contributed in the shape of taxes in actual competition with the payers of those taxes. There is no need to cite many instances in proof of this proposition. One is sufficient. The State has recognized the principle in passing laws to prevent the competition of prison labor with the honest labor of men unconvicted of crime. The appearance of the Kettering bill, PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AND the provisions of which would practically prohibit the sale in Illinois of a great many proprietary medicines and tend toward the upbuilding of the trade in nonsecrets, was not the only source of vexation and worry to the proprietary mind at this period. As we have intimated, the retail druggists of Chicago are united' in a strong organization, and the word went forth that it was quietly agreed among them to gradually discontinue the sale of many proprietary medicines. Customers were to be discouraged from using them and the articles themselves discredited by druggists referring prospective purchasers to the notion and department stores for supplies. No time was lost by the Proprietary Association in seeking a conference with the representatives of the retailers and the situation today is that the retailers and proprietors have joined hands against the jobber. The proprietors have issued an ultimatum to the wholesalers in which it is declared that unless the wholesalers meet the just demands of the retailers in regard to the sale of proprietary articles to department stores and other aggressive cutters the proprietary medicine manufacturers will refuse to longer supply the wholesalers of Chicago, and will go further in support of the retailers by organizing a central sales depot for the supply of their goods to retail druggists. At the same time the progress of the Kettering bill has been slowed up in a way that is surprising. The situation is an extremely interesting one and the outcome is being closely watched by the trade in other large centres. The retail druggists of the City of New York are alive to the importance of the movement and at a meeting of the Manhattan Pharmaceutical Association, the secretary was instructed to address a letter of congratulation to the druggists of Chicago on the success which they have thus far attained in their contention with the jobbers for the protection of their rights as the legitimate distributors of medicines. The Manhattan Pharmaceutical Association assured them also of the heartiest sympathy and good-will of their brethern of Manhattan and the Bronx. The situation in Chicago, while full of possibilities, has been productive of at least one good thing, and that is the establishment of thoroughly cordial relations between the proprietors and the retailers. These two departments of the trade can, if they choose to co-operate heartily, command the situation and the situation is full of hope. When the New York City Board of Health first engaged in the manufacture of antitoxin the product was still in its experimental stage. Now, however, it has been accepted all over the world; there are a dozen laboratories in this country engaged in its manufacture; there is no longer any need that the city engage in its production for experimental purposes. It is now time for the Board of Health to retire in favor of the great commercial laboratories. If it were argued that the city can produce a more reliable article than private laboratories the argument would be worthy of considerable attention. Statistics might be adduced to disprove that contention. In the present instance there is no necessity of doing this. It is established that the New York Board of Health is not entitled to advance this argument, for the Board of Health does not now make, and it is asserted that it at no time made, the smallest particle of antitoxin for the remedy of diphtheria or of any other disease. From the first day of its concern with the sale of this remedial agent the Bacteriological Laboratory has farmed out the making of the antitoxin into private hands. The maker of the antitoxin which the Board of Health has sold as its own has never had any connection with the Board of Health, but he has had an intimate association with another industry of which the director of the Bacteriological Laboratory is the head. All the horses from which the serum sold by the Board of Health is drawn are kept and treated at the New York Veterinary College of which Dr. Herman M. Biggs is president as well as director of the Bacteriological Laboratory, and of which the treasurer is the same Dr. George P. Biggs who is an assistant pathologist in the city laboratory. The actual manufacture of the antitoxins is conducted in a private stable, which fact debars the Bacteriological Laboratory from claiming superior advantages for its factory over the private laboratories. Moreover, the cost to the city of the antitoxin which is used for the treatment of diphtheria in New York City is said to be enormously disproportionate to the cost of other medicaments which are purchased from the drug trade on the proper system of tender and bid. A bill has been introduced in the New York Assembly by Mr. Collier, prohibiting the New York Board of Health from selling antitoxin and lymph in competition with the legitimate manufacturers. This bill in no wise interferes with the power of the Board to make and furnish antitoxin and lymph to the indigent, but merely restrains the Board from entering into unfair competition with business houses. It is to be hoped that the Collier bill will be passed. Being confident that we can co-operate to our mutual benefit I make you the following confidential offer. You have no doubt opportunities to recommend a reliable specialist for the eye, ear, nose, throat and correct fitting of glasses. I am certified from the Vienna Imperial Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, studied my specialty also in Berlin and London and have letters of recommendation for ability from some of the best European eye, ear, nose and throat specialists. I believe that on the strength of all these I can claim your confidence. I send you a few cards with the polite request that you kindly hand them to persons who may require my services for treatment of the eye, ear, nose, throat or fitting of glasses. In return for this favor I will pay you, as soon as received, 25 per cent of all money paid to me by such patients. I ask every patient who recommended him. My reason for making you this offer is the free (?) dispensary pest and the advertising quacks with which this city is infested to your and my detriment. I trust you will give this matter your kind and favorable consideration, also beg that you kindly answer me whether I may look for your co-operation. Very sincerely yours, This is certainly a novel means of fighting the free-dispensary evil. We are inclined to doubt whether the returns which the druggist will receive from his 25 per cent of the fees would suffice to turn the drug trade of Chicago into an advertising medium for this enterprising specialist. It is certainly turning tables with a vengeance when the physician, instead of exacting a percentage from the druggist on the prescription business sent him, proposes to pay a percentage on the patients' fees. Prize Essay. Brief, bright essays on subjects of interest to pharmacists are invited for the Prize Essay Department of the "American Druggist." For every article printed, long or short, the "American Druggist" will fortnightly pay $5.00. REMEDIES FOR SICK CATTLE. E BY FRANK HARVEY, Bel Air, Md. SSAYS have been already written and published on remedies for horses, and also for dogs, and it has occurred to the writer that an essay which would treat of remedies for sick cattle, while it might not be acceptable to city pharmacists, would probably be so to their country brothers, especially to those located in small country towns where there is no veterinarian. The scope of this paper is naturally rather limited, as only those diseases which are most common and most easily recognizable to cow owners will be treated of. Perhaps one of the commonest maladies from which cattle suffer is Mix and label: "Dissolve in a quart of hot water and drench cow, giving as one dose." If the cow should have carried the afterbirth for four or five days, no one who understands removing it being at hand, and a bad smell is emitted, give to prevent blood poisoning the following: Sodium hyposulphite .12 ozs. Water, enough to make.. ......24 ozs. Mix and label: "Give two ounces three times daily." Warts on Body or Udder. If the warts are pedunculated and the skin whole they should be removed with a knife, but when they are raw they can be removed by painting them every day (removing scab as often as possible) with: Solution of antimony chloride. Diarrhoea in Cattle. when cool enough drench the cow, giving daily. Dissolve in a pint of hot water." as one dose." The administration of the foregoing is followed at once by the following: Very Valuable. Enclosed find check, $3.00. Please credit We find the my account with the same. AMERICAN DRUGGIST to be very valuable. E. JAMES & SON. Ebensburg, Pa. (Written for the American Druggist.) WINDOW DISPLAYS THAT CAN BE MADE WITH A T MEAGER STOCK. BY JOSEPH F. HOSTELLEY, Collingdale, Pa. HE most prevalent apology among many druggists for poorly attended windows is the one that tells of a meager stock. Far too little of one article or class of articles to make inviting displays, they say in confidence, or intimate. This idea has a fallacious foundation. All commenable exhibits are not modeled from giant stocks. A pigmy pile of goods may be made to yield a clever trim if the man behind the pane is a little clever himself. The standing of a simple stock can be greatly elevated by diplomacy. For example: preserve all the empty soap boxes and cartons until a display of soaps is in order, then bring forth the empties, and, presto, from an insignificant stock of soap you have builded a display suggestive of popularity and plenty. We know of many pharmacists who persue the policy of aiding appearances by this form of frugality. We here offer some suggestions by the aid of which a pharmacist may be guided to lucratively exhibit a small stock of certain wares. A Percolation Window. With three large percolators suspended in the rear of window space, a short distance above the flooring, equidistant asunder, illustrate the cold percolation of syrup, the percolation of tincture of ginger and tincture of grass. Thus you have three distinct colors to attract the eye. The latter operation need only be conducted far enough to obtain a desirable quantity of the product for stock, and the percolator partly filled with water; leaving the finished product in the receptacle beneath. You will require an abundance of the first two tinctures, so keep them in action. Behind the syrup percolator place a piece of black paper, cardboard or fabric; to the rear of the other two, pieces of white, and then attach descriptive labels to the percolators. Now arrange in the centre of window, to help form foremost attraction, a filter for the clarification of some cloudy syrup. Better use plaited filted paper as the clarifying agent, reinforced by a small piece of the same folded plain, to obviate the possibilities of the paper fracturing during the operation and marring the scene. Such a viscid liquid as syrup will filter slowly and properly prolong the exhibition. Place upon the funnel a label telling what is seen. To the left of this apparatus suspend from the ceiling of window, by means of heavy cord or fine wire, either a funnel or percolator transformed into a separator of immiscible liquids. This can easily and well be done by inserting a perforated cork in the small orifice of percolator, from which a short glass tube protrudes, lengthened some three or four inches by a rubber tube, nipped in the centre by a Mohr's or Hoffman's pinch-cock; the application of the device being obvious, of course. When all this has received attention, pour into the separator a mixture of, say, some highly colored oil and water, and let the contrivance stand, or, more correctly, hang, placing beneath it a receptacle of glass, and affix to the former an elucidating label. If you are in pos session of a large regular separator the arrangement described would, naturally, be superfluous. The unoccupied space to the extreme right might be tenanted by a large straining device-a piece of fabric, woolen cloth of loose texture, cheese cloth or other goods, stretched over a wooden frame and held aloft by legs, or string from above. Place under it a suitable dish or funnel-capped bottle, and into it pour some tenacious liquid that will take some time to pass through the interstices of the strainer. Label this latter device. This display will make curious the eyes and minds of passing people. To Display Small Articles. From a large piece of heavy cardboard, or from several smaller sections united, fashion a very large five-fingered star. admirers. The constellations may be made to "shine" by covering with silver paper and adorning with tinsel, or by sprinkling them with diamond dust over a coat of white varnish. The latter devices may be again employed in this wise: From the material that created them design a huge crescent and hang it in the window centre as if in the heavens, by means of fine wire. Either from its upper or lower horn suspend a placard reading: "Night lamps and other sick-room requirements." Let the word "night" be the most conspicuous vocable. Now, assemble small stars as in previous trim. Upon the sable carpeting of the floor distribute first, the night lights, in the position of honor, then whatever sickroom service you can spare from stock. Every pharmacist finds it paying to put WINDOW STUDY NO, I.-COLD CREAM DISPLAY. Cover with plain white paper, after which fasten to each finger or point, with the aid of pins or thread, some vest-pocket products or sundries to be exposed for sale; e. g.: corn, headache or toothache cure, cough drops, soda mint tablets, liver pills, combs, etc. Leave in centre of star sufficient space to print the following inscription in letters large and easily read: "This star will lead you aright," or "A guiding star to comfort." When this has been done, suspend the star in the window, a foot or more above the base of same. Then cut a number of smaller stars from the cardboard, and, after covering with white paper, hang them a little to the rear of the conceit described, at varying distances above and around it. Cover the floor of window with some black fabric and leave it unoccupied. This severe simplicity of design will find many in a line of such goods, and, of course, even the small store in Poverty Place can produce a fair assortment of these commodities without much raking or scraping. These counterfeit orbs of the firmament could be utilized in several ways. Set just as last described, whisk brooms might be hung from the pendent moon and an inscription thereon read: "Crescent whisks are known to be best." Some of the same should be deftly distributed upon the floor of window. Still another mode of modeling an advertisement with them would be to affix to the crescent trinkets for infants' use, i. e.: nipples, nursing tubes, teething rings, tiny combs, brushes, etc. Upon the window stage to muster nursing bottles, talcum powder, fine toilet soap, etc. The accompanying placard to ask and say: "Baby cross at night? Here are some hints and helps." The statement to be in smaller type than the query. These expedients might prove instrumental in selling corn cure, hot-water bottles, to take to bed; preparations to exterminate bugs that bother at night; they could hurry the sale of headache powders attended by some such sign: "Were you at the dance last night? Try a headache powder." A Cold-Weather Suggestion. From paper or suitable fabric fashion a big chest protector, several times larger than its prototype, if window be a generous one. Upon it pen these words: "Coldweather reminders." Paste to centre of window pane or retain in this position by string from above. To the left of it hang a small shelf made from a piece of board, covered with white or cream colored paper, and on it place an empty quinine can or two, a bottle of quinine pills, and one or more boxes or cans of prepared mustard plasters. To the right of the chest defender suspend a lange hot-water bottle. In the centre of show platform deposit upon a paper-enveloped box, a quantity of bottled cod liver oil, plain and emulsified. About this centre piece assemble your cough and cold cures, liquid and solid; also throat troches. The reserved portions of platform might exhibit balm for chapped skin, toothache cure, witchhazel water for frost bites, plasters for chest and back colds, a bottle of powdered ginger root for ginger tea adherents, also yellow mustard for the mustard bath, licorice sticks, tar drops, horehound candy, and a few other cold-weather calls. This display comprises quite an assortment, but all of a type; everything is a member of a distinct class of goods. The exhibit would not necessitate a large stock of any one preparation or article. As a spring reminder we would pile rocks high about a basin of water placed in the centre of window, to simulate a wayside spring. Between the stones we would press real or artificial moss; on the top of the heap place a tin drinking-cup, and somewhere close by several cotton frogs made so realistic nowadays. The remaining floor of window would be carpeted with either moss, green sawdust or green excelsior, upon which we would display that inevitable spring tonic, our sarsaparilla. A sign pasted on the pane would say: "A Spring reminder.-No tonic to equal our sarsaparilla." Housecleaning aids and many products selling well at this season of the year could be displayed in this manner. In window study No. 1 is illustrated_a cold cream display on a small scale. In the centre of the exhibit is seen small jars of this unguent assembled upon a small table-like support. To the left (in the illustration) has been collected the ingredients of same, properly labeled, and accompanied by a placard pointing the significance of this display of medicaments, in these words: "What we make our cold cream from." Upon the right is seen such appliances as are used in the making of cold cream, attended by a placard reading: "Apparatus used in making our cold cream." A piece of white cheese cloth is draped from the top of window to enhance the appearance of the exhibit. This is a trim such as the public take to because through it you seem to seek their confidence, in a measure you confide in them. Such an exhibit will sell cold cream during any season of the year, Window study No. 2 illustrates a display made with but two dozen bottles of a preparation; in this case the article was Lavender Ammonia. The pillar in the centre was constructed from a roll of of Compounding.* As a continuation of the papers on this subject already contributed by me at various times to the Liverpool Pharmaceutical Students' Society, the following notes extracted from marginal annotations in the prescription register made during the last year may be of interest: corrugated packing paper, enveloped in Notes on Dispensing and Methods MIXTURES. Liq. ferri perchlor 1. 3 drs. 3 drs. 12 grs. 11⁄2 drs. drs. Tinct. tolutani WINDOW STUDY NO. 2.-LAVENDER AMMONIA. public sentiment;" this was then affixed to the face of the column. The other sign appearing diagonally across window reads: "Our Lavender Ammonia mounts the pedestal of popularity." Most any popular product could be displayed in this style, to which grace is added by the twining vine, about pillar and arch, fashioned by the hand of man.. This artificial vine is quite reasonable in price; judiciously hung a little makes a brave showing. The pharmacist who perforce must economize in his decorative devices, should not lose sight of the fact that, to make money, money must be spent. It can be seen without study that by using such display conceits as we have described above, the necessity for heaping high the subjects of trims is reduced to a minimum; they fill the position of "eye catchers" as well, if not better, than the pyramid or pile, both of which consume much stock in the building. Syrupi aurantii M. ft. mist. The caffeine dissolved in the water, though the sal volatile throws it out of strong solutions. The spirit in the sp. ammon. co. doubtless assists this solubility of caffeine, which in water requires 80parts to form a solution. Liq. bismuthi 2 ozs. ..ad 6 ozs. Sodii hyposulphitis Fiat mistura. 7. 2 drs. 2 drs. 1 dr. .ad 6 ozs. On mixing no immediate change was observed, but bearing in mind what takes place in a similar solution for a totally different purpose, the mixture was kept under observation. At the end of a day a brownish-yellow precipitate had fallen, and this gradually became darker and darker day by day until at the end of a month it was almost black. The precipitate is an oxy-sulphide of bismuth from the interaction of the sodium of thiosulphate and the bismuth citrate, assisted by the organic matters present and by the less than the bismuth hair dye, and will action of light. It is nothing more nor dye animal fibre or wool from a light brown to black, according to the time taken in the process and the amount of light to which the wool is exposed. A Salol is by no means easy to reduce to an impalpable powder by simple trituration, because of its tendency to adhere to the sides of the mortar and the pestle if of porcelain. For it and for thymol, sulphonal, and other insoluble bodies which exhibit this same tendency, I find the following method work out well where it is desired to give the drug in mixture form: Dissolve the salol in methylated ether and pour this solution on compound powder of tragacanth and lump sugar, grinding hard until the ether has evaporated. Then transfer to a hot mortar and continue the trituration until all smell of ether is removed. To this powder add water by degrees so as to form an emulsion. Having numerous salol mixtures to make similar to the above, we keep a compound salol powder ready containing 1 part of salol in 3 made with salol, 60. Gum tragacanth, powdered Gum acacia, powdered Lump sugar 15 15 90 The salicylate being liable to float to the surface, owing to its containing a good deal of air locked up in its particles, during powdering, I find it in this case best to rub it up with the compound chalk powder, and make into a stiff paste with the spirits of chloroform, which, thoroughly saturating both the powders, causes them to mix better on the subsequent addition of the water, which must be done little by little, the mucilage being added when about 2 ounces of water have been used. when cool, acid boracici, 7 grains. These directions, if the ointment only contained one of the alkaloids, would be all right, but when both cocaine and atropine are present as prescribed the atropine is not soluble 1 in 120, and on cooling part of the atropine is deposited as pasty specks. It is preferable to dissolve the cocaine in vaseline as directed, and then when cool work in the boric acid, with which the atropine has been intimately mixed. The irritating effect of even minute particles of corrosive chloride of mercury on the skin being borne in mind, a solution of this salt was made in 30 minims of alcohol, 1 fluid dram of castor oil was mixed with this, and then the liquid mixed with the unguentum petrolei on a slab with the point of a bone spatula. On keeping this seemed to become rather lumpy in places, and as this was most likely the effect of the action of the salicylic acid on the zinc oxide in the presence of the water from the hydrous wool fat forming zinc salicylate, the following modus operandi was adopted: The acid was rubbed down with 1 dram of zinc oxide, then 80 minims of water were added and well mixed. To this an ointment, made by rubbing the rest of the powders fine, mixing with paraffinum album molle and adeps lanae (anhydrous). 170 grains, melted together, was next added, and finally the perfume, mixing well. The object of using the zinc oxide, salicylic acid, and water rubbed together is to form the zinc salicylate at once, and so prevent any further change in the ointment. The resorcin must be powdered fine and added to the unguentum chrysarobini in the cold, for the resorcin being soluble in oils about 1 in 20, if heat were used the excess would crystallize out on cooling. I have noticed that when chrysarobin and resorcin are melted together in the proportion of 5 and 1 the mixture melts at a lower temperature than does chrysarobin alone, and that an ointment made with the mixture is smoother and easier made than when chrysarobin is there by itself. Phenol has also a solvent effect on chrysarobin. The relative insolubility of carbolic acid in paraffin ointments as pointed out by C. F. Henry gave an indication that this oil would not keep in solution the amount of phenol ordered. This opinion was justified on experiment, for fully half the phenol separated on cooling. On communication with the doctor olive oil was ordered instead of the liquid paraffin. The oxide was massed with resin ointment, and then the ext. gentianae, made into pilular consistence with powdered gentian, was added to bring the pills up to 2 grains each. By this means the action of the extract on the oxide was obviated as far as possible. Applied in this form, the remedy is absorbed into the system through the skin. The ointment is rubbed or spread over the affected part, then covered with a thick layer of cotton batting, and the whole finally bandaged with numerous layers of flannel. At the beginning of the treatment the writer usually gives sodium salicylate internally also, but suspends its use as soon as alleviation sets in. this method of treatment the writer claims that less salicylic acid is required to effect a cure than is ordinarily required, while the stomach is not so deleteriously affected as when the acid is given for some time. New Italian Pharmacopoeia. By A new edition of this publication will be issued in the spring of this year. The chief feature of the book from the commercial point of view will be the distinction drawn between the pharmaceutical products in general use, which drug stores may sell, and the special products, which will remain exclusively in the hands of pharmacists. |