The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-01-24
That Pharmacy Law.

Ii any one doubts the fact that for years
Michigan legislatures have been largely con-
trolled by craDks, let him look over our
laws. Conscientious cranks, too, who
wouldn't-no, they couldn't hang red
handed deliberate and brutal murderer. No,
1t seems so unkind, so harsh, so certain, so
revolving, so Inconvenient for the poor de-
luded unfortunate. Yes, but they allow
men who know and care nothing about
medicine to deal with the lives of the peo-
Pile so long as he calls himself doctor.
Men whose sole and only object is to secure
the dollars. and whose entire aim is to put
as many trips onto patient as possible,
provided he pays. Doctor Perkins told me
the other day that l was the oldest practi-
toner of regular medicine in the county, not
in years but in time of practice; so / feel at
liberty to talk relative to this matter from
long experience, and enter my protest before
it is eyerlastingIy too late.
Time was when l knew every doctor in
Shiawassee county, good, bad and indiffer-
ent, but there wasn't a fraction of what there
is now. 1t was in August, 1885, that put
out my modest shingle ip the then village
of Owosso with its 800 or more inhabitants
all so poor that there was not to exceed a
dozen families that could or would pay their
bills in the entire baliwick. Oh man! talk
about hard times. We are not in it now.
Tire aaob Rornac and Racly nth xyoro y,v
competitors, and how quiet it was then.
DIR. Perkins came after time, but went in
to the army before getting fairly established,
or after brief stay at least. Some day
may write the early professional history of
Owosso. My! how it will read.
After the war there was steady influx of
doctors into the state-probably due to our
lax laws-until 1t came to be saying that
michigan was the dumping ground" for
the whole creation of doctors and this coun-
ty seems to have been especially blest.
Latterly the flow has been from over the
border where many young or middle aged
men dropped the shovel and the hoe and
after brief stay in Detroit came armed
with the proper implement to-cure. Even
the venerable and crippled ex-soldier, DIR.
Perkins, was pushed off from the pension
examining board to make room for young
man who had to take out his naturalization
papers before he could qualify for his Office.
Shame would blush but for the fact that
this is a democratic administration. But
these things should be forgotten, perhaps.
After an academical course extending over
several years began the study of medicine
at the age of nineteen and was graduated at
the State University after three years of
turmoil in my twenty-second year. Some
of these so-called colleges have shorter
way and they know so much more now-a-
days. Everybody knows more. 1 have al
ways noticed, however, that man with
brains generally made a good doctor what
ever his opportunities may have been to ac-
quire an education. 1t is brains or brass
that gets there. Brass generally first, but
brains hold out better in the long run,
These are the men who frequently keep
their own drugs and dole out ''pisen," de-
spite the law. to unsuspicious people; and
right here Is where the injustice of the So
called pharmacy law comes In. A doctor
who don't know lupuline from leptrandin,
or hydrocyanic acid from Haarlem Oil can
dose out the drugs Unfortunately and the