The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1910-12-29
BY c. W. JENNINGS.

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%@ HERE seems to many peo-
zA pie to be something mys-
y FERROUS about druggist.
%VEK He may be good fellow
49, and amiable enough to
please everybody, but he
is a different being to outside eyes
when he retires behind the partition
in the back of the drug store and be-
gins to pour out mysterious and evil
smelling things and pound them up
with a pestle, according to the unread
able hieroglyphics furnished by your
doctor. Then he is the druggist, and
not when he is selling tooth-brushes
or ice cream soda.
This compounding of drugs has
risen to a profession during the last
few years, comparatively speaking. OF
almost equal Importance with the So
called higher ones Of medicine and
surgery. However, it Is much easier
and less expensive to acquire and also
takes less time. For instance, your
boy may be a fully equipped and
licensed pharmacist by the time he Is
nineteen; but he could not be much
of a doctor so early in life.
At fifteen years is about the time
you should send out your son who as
pires to be a pharmacist or chemist.
He doesn't need to have more educa-
ton than he would get by the first
year in high school. He doesn't re-
quire so much as that until two years
later, when he has to go away to
school; but it is easier to get 1t in the
beginning than afterward.
Get him job in a drug store some
where at anything the proprietor will
give him to do, for he doesn't know
enough yet to be more than roust-
about in the store, washing bottles,
sweeping out, running errands, ETC..
This will start him on sort of ap-
premiership, which should continue
for couple of years. At the end OF
that time he should be drawing Sc or
So or $40 week, according to his
usefulness and the generosity OF his
employer, and should know lot OF
things about the way drug stores are
conducted, how to handle pestle and
pound up crystals and powders and
things. and make himself generally
valuable.
Then he has to go to school and
take a regular course Of two years
Here is where his preliminary expert
ence will be of value, as 1t will enable
him to work his way through without
costing you anything; for, In large
city like New York or Chicago, for in
stance, he can arrange to work hall
the time and go to school the other
half, and the money he earns will be
enough, probably, to pay his expenses
The total cost of taking the two years
course amounts to about $500; but
this need not be paid all at once. Il
you have money enough to pay his
way through, so much the better
There are various scholarships oper
to him. The school year lasts usually
for thirty weeks.
Taking New York conditions as {
basis for this article, as most states
are generally alike in their require
ments, the leading university has two
courses in pharmacy. One, the college
course, requires for admission thu
equivalent of a common school educa
ton, including year in high school
and at the end Of two years bestow'
the degree of graduate in pharmacy
which qualities your boy to take thu
state examination necessary to be
come licensed pharmacist.
Then there is the university cours
to be admitted to which boy mus
have the equivalent of full higl
school ducation-which, after tw
tical chemist and carries admission
without examination into the surgica
and medical college, and also into tn
graduate courses leading to the de
gree Of doctor of pharmacy. Thes
two courses are alike in all essentials
except that the university course Is
little more advanced.
The course of study sounds formit
able to one who knows nothing abou
Il, for the specially. Of course, is chen
lstry, which is elaborated upo
through all the stages Of analytica
pharmaceutical. organic and inorgani
chemistry. Then there are the math'
matics of pharmacy, the theory {
pharmacy, pharmacognosy (the art {
applying scientific knowledge to tn
examination Of drugs), posolog
Creating of doses and quantities {
medicine), toxicology. biology and II
struction in the inorganic and organl
divisions of drugs.
BIZ the time he has completed TIL
course, your boy will probably hav
decided whether he wishes NOR
schooling, which would equip him #
the higher phases of tho business. {
to go out as practical druggist.