21. That he be not covetous or crafty, seeking his own lucre before
other men's help and comfort."
We may see the wisdom evinced by the author of the above advice,
especially in articles Nos. 2, 12, and 21, when we know of a druggist's
clerk of modern times, who, having stolen the physician's prescriptions
intrusted to his care, started out on borrowed capital, and, putting them
up as his own wonderful discoveries, advertised them extensively, until
his remedies, for all diseases which flesh is heir to, are now sold
throughout the entire universe!
As the doctors were accustomed to retain their most valuable recipes, and
put up the medicines themselves, selling them as nostrums, and because of
the heavy percentage demanded by them for those intrusted to the
apothecaries, and the small profit accruing from the sale of medicines at
the time, the poor wretched "cookes" were necessarily kept in extreme
poverty. So, in order to eke out a living, the apothecaries were also
grocers and small tradesmen. As at the present day, they were not required
to possess any knowledge of medical science beyond the reading of a few
books "relating to the nature of plants," hence very little honor or
profit could accrue from the business alone.
Grocers kept a small stock of drugs, sometimes in a corner by themselves,
but not unusually thrown about and jumbled amongst the articles kept for
culinary and other purposes. As mineral medicines became more generally
used, these were also added to the little stock, and not unfrequently was
some poisonous substance dealt out by a green clerk (as is often the case
nowadays) to the little errand girl, sent in haste for some culinary
article.
Allspice and aloes, sugar and tartar emetic, lemon essence and laudanum,
were thrown promiscuously together into drawers, or upon the most
convenient shelves, and you need not go far into the country to witness
the same lamentable spectacle in the enlightened nineteenth century. The
apothecary gave the most attention, as now, to the exposition and sale of
those articles which sold the most readily, and returned the greatest
profit. All druggists at present sell cigars and tobacco, at the same time
not unusually posting up a conspicuous sign--