The bee., 1883-06-30
in THE DRUGS.
Deception in Place Where IL ImperiIs HUI
man Life.

man Life.
A genial druggist on the Hill one
afternoon last week, in intervals be
tween pill-making, kindly enlightened
the Union reporter on the pIaeticeS of
pharmacists and physicians.
People wonder sometimes" he said,
"why they have to pay SO much for
prescriptions The answer is a very
simple one: 'diyies with the doctor.
You pay, for instance, eighty cents for
q medicine, the druggist gets sixty
cents, the doctor twenty. Each of
them keeps an account of the business
done, and they settle up once a month
Why, there's physician near by here
who owns one drug store and has an
interest in another. OF course such
doctors prescribe as much and as often
they can, very often telling the pa
tient TO go round to such a druggist
the man with whom they are in interest; !;
or may be the apotnecary's name will
appear on the prescription paper, and
he will go there naturally. But one
good dodge the doctors have is to have
secret formulas for preparing certain
well-knOwn remedies, known only to
their own druggi {. When the patient
goes to some other apothecary, thu
apothecary, if he is honest. has TO tell
him he can't put it up; that he don't
know the formula. For instance, the
doctor viii write a'o-s and soda, one
ounce. Well, how much aloes, how
much soda? What the proportions
are nobody knows but his own drug
giSt. Then some doctors will take an
iyory-handled brush and comb, an as
sOrtment Of fine cologne, toilet soap
and so on. as commission for sending
customers to you and they often take
at least they have in my case much
more than j have ever made. One
doctor did that with me so much that
/ shut down on him, and told him we
would do a cash business henceforth.
He had got So worth of goods and l
received, maybe, s on account Of pre-
scriptiOns Speaking Of doctors, an
old one came to me some years ago and
scolded me for charging only forty-fve
cents for prescription that was
brought to me by one of his patients.
why, man aliver he exclaimed, /
charged the young fellow So
wouldn't be consulted in such case
for less money, and here you charg d
him a paltry foTty-fye cents for the
medicine. This is simTly rid culous
Never charge less than $3.50 for a
medicine when ] send any one to you,
no matter what it is For VIII n you
do that the man will take the medi-
cine all up and really think
there has been something seri-
Gus the matter with him The drug
gists who work on a commission with
Che doctor of course charge higher
than those who do not do busin IS; in
that way. For instance, they will
charge say eighty cents for an Gig it
ounce bottle of the solution Of sui
phate of zinc; il costs them about
twenty cents pound. / would put
up the same thing al day for twenty
five cents. ] knew Of a druggist who
offered physician $1,000 for the right
to put up his prescriptions the doc
tor refused, having been offered $4,000
by another party. 1t is a well-known
practice among even the best of doc
tors to secure a certain cla S Of a tents
all they can and TO charge unusually
large fees for advice that any compe-
tent druggist could give them, and the
medicine thrown in for dollar or two.
A legitimate charge for prescriptions
would be at the rate Of say, from five
to twenty cents an ounce, depending
on the kind Of medicine. Some drug
gists advertise toilet articles and patent
medicines at reduced prices That is
Dn'y a dodge TO get custom. They
make up the difference 10y putting it
on the prescriptions. One firm in this
city advertised an eight-ounce solution
Of sugar of lead for thirty-five cents.
went down there with a prescription
and paid seventy-five cents fer only
six ounces of the same thing. l told
them j was druggist, and they con-
fessed they were caught. Sometimes
On a prescription you will see the let
bers p. p; that means poor patient
The doctor indicates that he doesn't
want you to charge him much. Some
druggists, when they haven't some par
ticular medicine named in prescrip.
ton will often substitute some other
remedy. If, for instance, the elixir of
guinine, pepsin and bismuth is ordered
they will leave out pepsin and bismutll
and give you quinine and iron. With
the elixirS they will substitute for
some expensive article a preparation
Of their own make. They viii have
Jones preparation of some standard
medicine; the physician has compel ID
them to get it because he knows its
value. But when the bottle gets
empty the druggist will fill it up with
some medicine of a cheaper grade, and
The doctor, seeing the bottle there on
The shelf, will think he is getting the
genuine stuff. You think the soda.
water fountain is an innocentlOOking
place: so il is, but there is humbug
lven there. Atone of the largest drug
stores downtown you 60 in and ask
for Vichy water, another man Con
press water. another Geyser water, and
soon. The clerk draws from different
tars. hut if YOU went down in the
rellar YOU would see that all the waters
rame from one barrel, or fountain
A druggist lately kept selling Vichy
to a customer who thought he wa:
getting clysmic. One morning the
customer came in as usual, and the
clerk waited on him instead of thc
proprietor. The man pointed TO tht
fnllntain and said. .GIass clysmic.' buI