Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1897-07-24

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.HAvE YOU SEEN MAMIE THIS EVEN
ING?'
FERROUS seclusion of the prescription
room.
A moment later Mamie tun bled into
view and disappeared as quickly across
the street.
Been having callers again?'
marked the casual visitor who was just
strolling in.
The clerk nodded
The visitor made a move as though
he were about to take look in back of
the prescription counter, but the
threatening eye of the clerk stopped
him.
to see," he said
Indeed, if there is any one place in
the commercial world that is mystery
to the general public, it is the spot
back of the prescription counter in
drug store.
What we you got back there, any
way?" queried the casual visitor, keep
ing a harem, eh?'
Not at ALL" said the drug clerk,
there's nothing unusual about the
place. although to the ignorant public
the little corner where we practice our
black art, doubtless, has decided con-
notation of mystery"
You see," he continued, $50 many
costly mistakes have been made in COM
pounding prescriptions, that we in
stinctively object TO allowing anyone
in our Workshop"
Lots of trouble in your business,
isn't there?" suggested the causaI
visitor.
'Well, should say so. You've heard
all about the telephone, postage stamp
and directory nuisance, and of course,
you know that drug clerk must be
walking encyclopedia of current fact
and fiction, but that doesn't tell half
our Woe"
It is fact that the end of the CEN
fury druggist is confronted with "a mass
of harassing problems. Thirty years
ago the druggist was on level with
every other merchant and by serving
a proper apprenticeship any boy could
become a druggist just as he might
carpenter. But after the close of the
civil war, the hospita. stewards who had
acted as assistants to the war doctors
began to open drug stores in all parts
of the country. This raised the ques-
tion of legal restrictions on the right to
dispense, and finally pharmacy was ele-
waited to the rank of a professionals
the druggists like to call 1.-THE sister
profession of medicine.
But the standard of the retail drug
business has huctuated between that
of a profession and that of mere
trade. Many pharmacists assert that
their stores should carry no side lines,
but should confine themselves strictly
to the sale of drugs and to dispensing.
The temptation to make extra money
has. however, proved too great, and 50
our American drug stores. quite unlike
those one finds in Europe, are delving
in side lines galore. On the whole. the
income from soda. cigars. candies and
stationery probably exceeds the pro-
ceeds of the pharmaceutical depart
ment.
A most lucrative side line. but one
that causes endless trouble, fills the
cups that cheer and inebriate as well.
A respectable druggist can generally
get license to sell --quor for medicinal
purposes. provided he enters the sale
upon his books with the name and ad-
dress OF the buyer; but sometimes the
licenses are restricted to sales on ply
sicians prescriptions Few druggists
live up to the letter of the law. while
some men open drug stores for the sole
purpose of running barroom back in
that mysterious corner alleged to tie
reserved TO the compromising of pre-
ScriptionS The whole trade must suf-