The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1895-04-27
WOMEN DRUGGISTS,
BUSINESS PARTICULARLY
- FITTED FOR THEM.
There Are in the United States Between
800 and 400 Women Who Have Re-
ceived the Degree OF Phi. G.-one of
the Shrewdest Drug Buyers.

800 and 400 Women Who Have Re.
ceived the Degree OF Phi. Gone OF
the shrewdest Drug Buyers.
1t is considerably less than half q
century since the first woman pharma-
clst was graduated from one of the
Oldest colleges of pharmacy in Amer
lea. About the same time women be-
gan to conceive the idea of studying
medicine and to-day the women DIV
slcians throughout the land are legion
whereas, while nearly all the schools
of pharmacy of recognized standing
admit women upon the same terms as
men, the former have not awaited
themselves of the privileges accorded
them as readily as the latter.
For instance, there are, altogether.
between 200 and 400 women in the
United States who have received the
degree OF Ph. G., the majority of whom
nave charge OF the drug rooms of
various hospitals, or are engaged as
dispensing clerks by some of the larger
and more progressive druggists. A
few have drug stores of their own and
TO their credit it is said that none of
them were ever held responsible for
errors in compromising prescriptions,
which has SO often happened to apoth-
ecaries who have had inefficient or
careless assistants. Indeed, there is
no profession or business where so
much depends upon what NAV be
termed mathematical precision, or as a
professor at one of our Philadelphia
colleges of pharmacy pertinently put
it, "the precision of exactness.'
1t is invariably conceded that wo-
men are more Thorough in whatever
they undertake than the opposite per-
suasion, says the Philadelphia Times:
that they are moreover, endowed with
tact and faculty for calculating re-
suits with wonderful rapidity, all of
which traits makes a very practicable
and much-to-be-desired tout ensemble
for anyone contemplating the study of
pharmacy.
OF course the salaries for dispensing
clerks are graded according to the
place they =; the average is from
forty to seventy-fve dollars per month.
Women occupying the positions of
chief pharmacists in large hospitals
are paid anywhere from six to nine
hundred dollars per annum.
A New England apothecary, whose
name is almost household word in
the Hub, was recently asked to assign
his reasons for always employing wo-
men in the prescription department of
his establishment in preference to
men. His reply was brief and to the
point.
because we can always depend
upon them. We know not only where
to. find them but how to find them. No
big heads, no mistakes, hence no suits
for damages resulting from careless
reading of prescri ptions."
One OF the largest wholesale drug
houses in this country has in it's employ
a woman Phi. G. as buyer, paying her
an annual salary representing three
cyphers with fair-sized numeral be-
fore them. She travels all over Eu-
rope in their interest, and is reported
to be one of the smoothest buyers in
the foreign trade. She is the first and
as yet the only woman to fill such DO
sition.
Several manufacturing chemists en-
ploy women pharmacists in different
capacities. Much of the analytical
work, such as testing for the purpose
OF ascertaining the identity, purity and
strength of the drugs and preparations
named in the pharmacopoeia, is now
being done by women, who besides,
their regular course of study, have
paid special attention to gravimetric
and volumetric methods of analysis.
A word more as to how the women
pharmacists are received by the male
members of the profession, There is
absolutely no discrimination between
them. They are admitted to the va
rious state associations as well as to
the national pharmaceutical associa-
ton. Everywhere the men welcome
the woman druggist. There is no
spirit OF rivalry. On the contrary,
she is regarded by the more broad
minded men as an innovation rather
Iudu DIS oh enCfOdClm6nt.
But not every woman can become
druggist: any more than every man
can become lawyer, doctor or minis
ter. There must be that within one
which shows there is some special
adaptability for the work, then follows
three years at a pharmaceutical college,
where theoretical training is supple
mented by mastery of practical minor
details.
Then another year. as assistant or
articled clerk in order to understand
the modus operandi of an everyday
pharmacy, after which you may turn
your thoughts to obtaining a perma-
<nent position in either hospital, with
a. retail or wholesale druggist, or, if
means permit and aspirations justify,
hang out a mortar and pestle of your
own, in which case you will be well
,patronized and your fellow. pharma-
cists will wish you success. =
Quiet Rubhar.