The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1880-04-22
What the Drug Clerk Said.
BY MAX ADLER.

csXSS drank the soda water tiavoret
| rs with pine apple syrup.
Eyes, very good"
The drug clerk laughed sardon
ically and said:
"Of course. But then you dom
know what it is made Off
"What do you mean?"
"The old mans out" he said
looking cautiously around the store
"and I'll let you into some of tn,
secrets of the business, if you won
give me away"
Strict secrecy being promised b,
continued:
sThe old man made that pine ap
pie syrup, but he didn't make i
right from tie fruit. He made i
out of old cheese that you could
smell through a fire-proof safe. Ful
of shippers, tool I'll tell you a
curious thing about that cheese
He cut off slice and brought it w
stairs with him one night. He laiG
it en- the counter; next morning il
was gone. Come to look, the little
animals in it had showed it on the
floor, wriggled it down stairs, AID
put it back exactly in its old place
in the cheese. The old man said il
was an extraordinary illustration
of the strength of the home instinct
in the brute creation.
"Yes, and our sarsaparilla syrup
he doctors up by extracting juice
from boot-legs and old trunks. He
distills all our lemon syrup from
roofing shingles and from chips that
we get over here at the cooper 6
shop; and when we run out of rasp
berry all he wants is a handful OF
red bugs, a gallon of coal oil, and
half an hour by himself. And as
for the soda water itself-well, il
people only knew how we use up
sedlitz powders when the soda is
short, the stored be gutted by a
bowling mob in les'n an hourr'
"Do you do that kind of thing
often?"
Gotten is not the WORD for it.
The drug business is a perfect
fraud. These porous plasters. He
makes 'em out of old sun bon
nets and glue-cuts up the sun
bonnets and smears the glue; and
when you get one of his plssters on
your back it is there for life. There
is a man that comes in here most
every day to swear at the old man
because he put on one of our plas-
ters for lame back In 1S4S, time
of the Mexican war, and he could
not get it of; the skin grew over it
like the bark of a tree, you know.
That plaster has worked further
and further in until now it's gone
in his lungs, and it pulls at his left
lung in way to set him crazy. He
is very remark able chemist-the
old man. l do believe he could
make paragorio out Of umbrellas,
and boil down an illustrated weekly
paper into otto of roses. He has
the Elamedest ingenuity, You
wouldn't believe it.
"But your customers generally
are satisfied?'
"Oh, yes. You see they don't
know. A doctor sends a prescrip
tion here, written in a dead Ian
guage. We don't bother ourselves s
to try to read it. 1 ask the boy
what's the matter with the patient.
Then put little cayenne pepper
In some molasses, and touch her up
with asafetlda to give her good,
strong smell, and drop in some
squills and ipecac to make a kind
of goodness in the stomach, and stir
in some wormwood to make her
take hold of the insides, and then
let her go. Patient thinks it's
splendid because it tastes nasty /;
and the old man gets the money,
and SO everybody's happy. There s
a woman around in Pine street with
lumbago who deals with US, and
one day when 1 forgot to put in the
asafetida in the lotion, she sent
around and threatened to prosecute
US Tor malpractice. Tho old man
fixed up the next bottle so that you
could have smelt it in Asiatic Tur
key when the cork was out. That
seemed to calm her."
"Do the physicians approve that
kind of thIngY
"Oh, you know the doctors all
work share and share with the old
man. If doctor sees a woman 60
ing to die anyhow, he loads her up
with drugs, and then collects 20 per
cent. commission from us. And so
when we accidentally put in arsenic
instead of glauber salts, and a con-
valescent patient climbs the golden
stair, the doctor knows better than
to make fuss about the mistake.
He wipes his eyes and tells the fam
ily he saw the disease would be fa-
tai from the first. We have new
boy here who makes aboutNfour
blunders a week. Never gets hold
of any harmless drug when there's
a deadly poison in reach. The old
man hires him for economy. Only
last week he sent a quart of lauda
mum to a young clergyman who
sent for port wine, and one of our
best customers was an angel in less
than an hour. If that boy was let
60, perfectly loose, to do just as he
pleased, he'd fill all the cemeteries
in town before the month was out.
"Where is he?''
"Why, he's out now. He took to
Mrs. Jones, who now has cerebro-
spinal meningitis, the medicine that
was intended for Mr.. Blackburn S
baby; and the baby got Mrs. Jones
prescription. He has gone back to
rectify the mistake. You just no.
tice when you go by Blackburn's if
there isn't Grape on the door. bet
you a pound OF cough lozenges that
baby was waited into the uysteri
Gus realms of the hereafter, three
quarters of an hour ago. That boy
never knows where anything is but
the gum drops and the licorice. He
can go straight to them every time.
Here he comes now. Say, Johnny,
did you fix it all right?"
"No," said a small boy, who en-
tered at the mon u. s'Blackburn s
baby got a doso before 1 reached
the house, and it has gone up"
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