ath. I have gossiped with pharmacists enough to know that all
physicians do not avoid incompatibles in their prescriptions, and that
occasionally a combination falls into the prescription clerk's hands,
which, if made up as he reads it would produce a poisonous compound, or
perhaps even an explosive mixture. Two heads are better than one, and if
my physician ever makes a mistake of this kind I look to my pharmacist to
see that it shall not reach the practical stage.

I recognize the great value and service of the department store, but I do
not go there for my law or medicine; neither do I care to resort thither
for my pharmacy. I want our separate drug stores to persist, and I want
them to remain in charge of experts.

And when the store deals in other things than purely therapeutic
preparations--which I have already said I think probably unavoidable,--I
want it to present the aspect of a pharmacy that deals also in toilet
preparations and mineral water, not of an establishment for dispensing
soda-water and soap, where one may have a prescription filled on the side,
in an emergency. And when the emergency does arise, I should have the
pharmacy respond to it. It is the place where we naturally look in an
emergency--the spot to which the victim of an accident is carried
directly--the one where the lady bends her steps when she feels that she
is going to faint. In hundreds of cases the drug store is our only
standby, and it should be the druggist's business to see that it never
fails us. There are pharmacies where a telephone message brings an
unfailing response; there are others to which one would as soon think of
sending an inquiry regarding a Biblical quotation. To which type, do you
think, will the public prefer to resort?

Then there are those little courtesies that no retail business is obliged
to offer, but that the public has been accustomed to expect from the
druggist--the cashing of checks, the changing of bills, the furnishing of
postage stamps, the consultation of the city directory. There can be no
reason for resorting to a drug store for all these favors except that the
pharmacist has an enviable reputation as the man who is most likely to
grant them. And yet I begin to hear druggists complaining of the results
of this reputation, of which they ought to be proud; I see them pointing
out that there is no profit on postage stamps and no commission for
changing a bill. They intimate, further, that although it m