The pharmacist at work

Preface

Part of this work first appeared as a series of articles in " Merck's Report" of 1895 and 1896. Numerous favorable comments on these papers and the expressed wish of many readers to have them presented in book-form induced me to rearrange and complete them so as to include all the official pharmaceutical preparations. I here render my thanks to the editor and publishers of " Merck's Report," for their consent to have these essays — even though in altered and enlarged form — reproduced in this volume.

In offering this book to my pharmaceutical brethren, I trust that its performance may be measured by its plan. There is no intention to present a complete or systematically grouped delineation of the science or art of pharmacy ; nor is the book expected to replace or supersede any other existing work. Its main object is to depict, through the means of examples drawn from actual occurrence, the necessity of combining theoretical knowledge with practical experience in order to meet the many emergencies of our profession ; further, to place before the older pharmacists a model of how they may effectively instruct their apprentices, and, finally, iv PREFACE

to teach the younger ones how to learn and study, and how to apply book-learning to their daily work.

The volume therefore commends itself to all those young men who, by force of circumstances, are deprived of the benefits of college education, and must work their way through the intricacies of the various branches of pharmacy by home study. It will show them how to understand books of learning, and create in them the desire to know more than the mere names or doses of the drugs and chemicals which they handle every day. It will teach them that there is nothing so small and insignificant in pharmacy that its source and history may not be profitably made the subject of research, and will give them the first glimpse — even if only a cursory one — into the unimagined beauties and treasures of scientific knowledge.

The student who, after preliminary instruction, completes his education in a pharmaceutical college before entering on actual work may, with equal advantage, use this book. It will assist him in many practical difficulties, and show him how to utilize theoretical knowledge. He will soon cease to look upon his merely practically taught brother with pity or derision, and he will be brought to the admission that the technical skill and deftness peculiarly requisite in pharmacy are accomplishments that must be learned by experience behind the counter.

Not only the young pharmacists, however, but possibly also my older brethren, may profit by reading

PREFACE v

these pages. Not that I pretend to be able to teach them airy thing new : there is nothing in this book that every pharmacist should not know ; indeed, all that is written therein has actually happened, and may happen again, in the daily routine of many pharmacists. But efficiently to impart knowledge and enthusiasm to their apprentices and clerks ; to teach them not only to become skilful pharmacists, but also to love their profession, — this is a gift that not all possess, and which but few practise. Let this book find opportunity to be a guide for such proprietors, and let its true story imbue them with faith in the great pleasure and satisfaction which is to be derived from patiently instructing the rising generation, and thus preparing them to become, in their day, more efficient, more faithful, and more advanced pharmacists than we are.

At the same time, if I should succeed in showing the reader that, in spite of all common drudgery and serious difficulties, the profession of pharmacy has its desirable features, and can be practised with attachment and devotion, — if I should be able to arouse in my confreres that love for their daily task which alone can compensate for the many privations we must suffer, and which is also the surest road to success, — I will feel amply rewarded.

The Author.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — The Laboratory — Powdering Drugs — Compound Liquorice Powder — Sieves . c . . . 5

II. — Prescriptions in Powder Form — Criticism of Prescriptions — Confidence in Pharmaceutical Work — Deliquescence and Efflorescence — Prescription-Sieve — Official Powders 20

Chapter I. The Laboratory — Powdering Drugs — Compound Liquorice Powder — Sieves

" This is hard work," said the Junior to the Proprietor, wiping the perspiration from his forehead ; "I did not think that it would be so tedious to powder camphor."

"If you had had some experience in powdering drugs," replied the Proprietor, "you would have finished your work in less time and with less labor. In the beginning, you put too much alcohol in the mortar, so that the mixture was too moist and could not be powdered ; you then added too much camphor, and continued to make these mistakes for half an hour. In powdering drugs, you must never take more than a small quantity at a time ; for the first powdered lot will act like an elastic layer around or under the coarser parts and protect them against the action of the pestle, and if, then, you use more power, you drive the finer particles off into the air. I did not wish to interfere ; for I thought that, coming from a well-known pharmacy, where you spent two years, you were familiar with the nature of camphor."

"I must confess," said the young man, who had been engaged by this Proprietor only a few days before, "that this is my first attempt at powdering camphor or any other drug."

The room where this conversation took place was a spacious laboratory, connected with the pharmacy by a sliding door, which usually stood open, so that the Proprietor as well as his assistants could easily step from one room to the other. The morning hours, when business was comparatively dull, were mostly employed in making some galenical preparation ; and the Proprietor always instructed the younger clerks in such laboratory work, — watching each step of the process, — explaining and commenting, showing, whenever necessary, how to handle pestle and graduate, and himself preparing only such things as required the skill of a more experienced hand.

" You said you never powdered camphor formerly," continued the Proprietor. " Who, then, did such work, if not the junior clerks?"

" Nobody ; we bought it powdered, like everything else."

" Did you not make your own fluid extracts and tinctures ?"

"No, sir; everything came into the store ready-made. In fact, we had no place to make preparations ; there was hardly room enough behind the prescription-counter to turn around ; and our chief business was the sale of soda water and toilet articles. And, indeed," he added, hesitatingly, " could not every pharmacy be conducted without a laboratory just as well?"

" Decidedly not !" said the Proprietor, emphatically. " A variety bazaar can be established and conducted in that way, but not a pharmacy."

The Junior did not contradict, but his doubtful eyes betrayed his mind.

The Proprietor read his thoughts ; and, wishing that all his employees should share his own views on the profession which he cherished highest of all earthly goods, he at once embraced the opportunity to enlighten the young man and lead him towards the right way.

"Tell me," he said, a have you not learned more about camphor during the last hour than you ever knew before ?"

" Well — yes," was the reply ; " I certainly learned a good deal. But, on the other hand, what is saved by powdering it here in the laboratory? — does the small saving pay for the time and labor ?"

The Proprietor answered : " The saving is really the smallest of the advantages of the laboratory, although it is in some cases not inconsiderable. The principal advantage is the purity of the preparations thus attainable and the positive knowledge of their purity and exactness. Here, for instance, we used half an ounce of magnesium carbonate to the pound of camphor, or about three per cent. Xow, in the commercial powdered camphor a much larger percentage of magnesia is sometimes added : and how great is the temptation to do so, when camphor costs four times as much as magnesia ! Some time as;o. in controversy with a friend on this subject, I ordered a pound of powdered camphor from a wholesale house in good repute, and separated the camphor from the adulterant by dissolving it in alcohol and filtering the undissolved magnesia off. After drying and weighing the residue. I found as much as thirty-five per cent. of magnesia. Could any one after such a discovery continue to buy powdered camphor and remain an honest dispenser and careful pharmacist?"

The Junior had meanwhile cleaned mortar and pestle by using a few cubic centimetres of alcohol ; but the Proprietor, growing warm on his subject, continued : " The laboratory is my favorite abode ; here I spend the happiest hours of my business life ; what I see around me is my own. not only because I paid for it. but because most of these preparations are the result of my experience, my ability, my labor. In stating the composition of this tincture or the strength of that fluid extract. I do not repeat the assertions of some travelling salesman or simply read off the printed labels of some manufacturer. No ! I give a record of my own work, my care, my patience and perseverance. The contents of these packages and bottles are dear to me, because I created them ; they tell the history of my daily life, and their, perfection is a testimonial to my knowledge of and my devotion to my profession. And as we always learn by teaching, so do we also increase our skill and knowledge by using them in compounding our own preparations. The properties of drugs become known to us, not through inert statements of books, but, as it were, through living voices, that speak to us and tell us their origin, their history, their use and application. Thus, the laboratory gives us a continuous schooling towards our own perfection, more eloquent than learned professors, plainer and clearer than the most powerful language. It teaches us to discern the pure from the adulterated, the good from the bad, and trains us to reach the highest degree of care and exactness so necessary in the discharge of our duties."

After a pause, he contiuued : " How manifold are the reflections that occur to the thinking workers in the laboratory ! In handling the various drugs he travels on the wings of the mind from land to land ; he crosses oceans and mountains; he picks a shrub from the rocks of the Andes and in the next minute wanders through the plains of Persia ; he descends into the depths of the earth for glistening minerals, and rises to the tops of snow-crowned peaks to hunt for lichens and mosses. There is no barrier, no limit. And all this is not the idle fancy of an overstrung brain, but the systematic journey of a reasoning mind, asking each drug its origin and home. Tell me, my young friend, what thoughts had you while you powdered the camphor?"

The Junior blushed and found no answer. The enthusiasm of his employer was to him a phenomenon so unexpected, so sudden, and so entirely different from anything that he had been accustomed to meet in pharmacy, that these words appeared to him like a revelation ; he was unable to entirely follow the old man before him, who, with his sparkling eyes and impressive speech, seemed to be much younger than before. But he suddenly became conscious of a beauty and grandeur in his profession which before he had never been aware of.

"I do not know " he stammered.

"Let me tell you," interrupted the Proprietor, " what I was thinking of when, years ago, I had to powder camphor myself. First, my thoughts carried me to Asia, the home of camphor. I now again imagine myself there. From China I cross to Japan, and farther south to the island of Formosa, the richest ground of the camphor-tree. I enter the virgin forests where this evergreen tree abounds. Its growth reminds me of the linden, with a thick, straight trunk, branching above manifold, covered with a smooth, greenish bark. The small, white, clustered flowers exhale the odor of camphor ; some have already formed the fruit, — a red berry. I admire the magnificent foliage of smoothribbed, lanceolate leaves, bright green above and paler below. I watch the natives chip the tree and gather the leaves. They heat them in a roughly-constructed still, after having covered them with water. The steam that rises carries with it the sublimed camphor, which is deposited in crude earthen vessels. The camphor is then shipped in baskets to the trading-places ; and I see before me, in Canton, representatives of all civilized nations bargaining with the wily Mongols for this valuable product. The ship is laden ; I go aboard ; auchor is weighed ; we sail south, touching at Batavia, where another quantity is added to the cargo, — called Dutch camphor, after the people who control its market. It is, like the former, in granular masses, but of a pinkish color, and valued higher because it is purer. Now we sail home ; the crude camphor is brought to New York and Philadelphia, where it is purified in extensive refineries, and finally comes into the market in large, circular plates of one or two inches' thickness. All this appears to me while I inhale the aromatic vapor. But my thoughts not only travel back, but also forward. From my store I follow the camphor into the houses of my customers. I see some of it put into boxes and trunks to keep moths from attacking valuable furs and clothes ; some dissolved in alcohol, to form camphor spirit and other liniments for the lame and sick ; and some of it, the powdered, reaches the mournful chamber of the unfortunate who is stricken with pneumonia. My imagination sees the nurse prepare the poultice of which camphor is an important ingredient ; and, by the proper use and correct strength of this powder, a human life may be saved. And, knowing this, can you be careless and indifferent as to the degree of its purity ? Is it mere sentimentality to think of this, or is it the consciousness of your responsibility that directs your thoughts ? And, thus thinking, the work progresses without effort, and you are surprised that, by the time your thoughts return home, the powdered camphor is before you."

After a while the Junior broke the silence, saying:

" That is certainly a beautiful way to work, but not every one can do it. How many are there that know all this about every drug?"

" Is not this your guide ?" replied the Proprietor, pointing to a dispensatory that lay on the table. " If you know nothing about a drug, should not the task of handling it fill you with the desire to learn something about it ? Open the book while you powder the drug and let your eyes run over the lines, or, if your full attention is required in the work, read up the subject soon afterwards. What you read and learn on such occasions will remain your oavii for all your life."

" I am sincerely thankful," said the Junior, " and will try to follow your instructions."

" Why did you not put all the camphor into the stock-bottle?" asked the Proprietor, pointing to a small paper in which was some of the powder.

" W 7 hen I cleaned the prescription-counter this morning," said the Junior, " I noticed that the bottle labelled ' Camphor' did not contain any powder, but small pieces of camphor, aud I thought I could take them out and replace them by some of this powdered camphor."

The Proprietor smiled and said : " I am glad to see that you observe ; it is one of the most necessary qualifications of a pharmacist to see not only with his eyes but also with his understanding, as you have done in this instance. How r ever, in this case, you nevertheless went w r rong, for, as you know, our powdered camphor contains three per cent, of magnesia, is therefore not pure, and should not be used for prescription work."

" It was always done thus in my former position," interposed the Junior.

" Now you see," said the Proprietor, " to what careless practices the indiscriminate buying of ready-made goods will lead. The commercial powdered camphor sometimes contains, as I have shown, as much as thirty-five per cent, of adulterants, and may contain more. If we should use it in prescriptions the patient would get only two-thirds of the amount of camphor that the physician prescribed. As a consequence, the medicine would not have the expected effect, and physician and patient would gradually lose their confidence in the pharmacist. Moreover, consider the moral wrong involved in giving the confiding customer inferior or ineffective medicine."

After the Junior had replaced the small particles of camphor into the bottle, his eye caught the various pharmaceutical apparatus that stood along the opposite walls of the laboratory, among which there were two drug-mills, one small one for hand-power and a large one driven by an electric motor.

" Why could we not have powdered the camphor in the mill ?" he asked.

"On account of its tendency to clog; instead of running through the mill as fine powder it would have clogged the grinding wheels. This is often, although in a smaller degree, the case with other drugs, — especially when they are moist, — and it takes some experience to handle the mill properly. Often a drug has to be ground repeatedly, setting the mill finer every time. In using the same mill for various drugs great care should be taken to clean each part of the mill after each operation, so that small particles of one drug are not mixed with the next one."

" Compound liquorice powder must be made !" shouted the Senior clerk, coming through the door from the store. " I just sold a pound, and the stock-bottle is nearly empty." Going through the laboratory he looked into several jars and cans, and, handing the Junior a slip of paper, he added, "Here is a formula : ' Senna (No. 80), 180; liquorice (No. 80), 236 ; washed sulphur, 80 ; oil of fennel, 4 ; sugar, 500 grammes/ You had better make five kilos. But our sugar is almost out, and we shall not get another barrel before night. Here, boy," he said, addressing a lad who was washing bottles at a sink in a corner of the laboratory, " run and get some powdered sugar."

" How much shall I get ?" asked the boy.

" Let me see ; about five or six pounds."

"How much?"

" About five or six pounds ; can't you hear ?"

The boy hesitated a second and looked inquiringly at the Proprietor, who said, in a quiet but decided way, " Get six pounds."

While the Senior returned to the store, the Proprietor addressed the Junior : " Now, remember what I told you ; and, when you mix the ingredients, try to think of the nature of the drugs that you handle, and your work will be much easier."

" Will you not show me how to incorporate the oil with the powder ?"

"I will return directly," said the Proprietor; " meanwhile weigh out the different ingredients, taking five times the quantities marked on that slip."

With these words he followed the Senior into the store. After ascertaining that no customer was present who might hear him, he said :" You made a mistake in giving the quantities."

"I beg your pardon, sir," interrupted the Senior, somewhat excitedly, with the air of authority that college students are apt to assume when they approach their final examination. " I looked the formula up in the ( Pharmacopoeia/ and I know that it is correct."

" You made another mistake just now," replied the Proprietor, quietly.

The Senior looked at him in surprise.

" Will you kindly tell me what you mean ?" His voice sounded less assured than before.

" Your second mistake consisted in interrupting me and refuting a charge that I had not made," said the Proprietor ; and after a short silence he added : " And your first mistake was the order for sugar that you gave the boy. Instead of ordering a definite quantity, you said ' five or six pounds/ leaving it to him to decide what to do."

" But it was really of no account. I believe five pounds would have been enough ; for, adding what little we have left, we would have had two and a half kilos, and some to spare."

u It was of no account as far as the sugar was concerned ; but of great account as far as the boy's estimate of your ability is concerned. A man in our profession must not be vague and undecided, or he will never gain public confidence. Have you never been provoked by the customer who asks for ' Glycerin, — about ten or twenty cents' worth' ? If you give him ten cents' worth, he will say, l That is too little ; put some more in ;' and if you give him twenty cents' worth, he will say, ' That is too much ; I guess half of it will do.' And yet you practise his faults yourself. If a mother asks you how much syrup of rhubarb she shall give her child, you may say, i Oh, about a teaspoonful, or half a one ; it does not matter/ You may be right in respect to the dose, but you are greatly wrong in respect to your reputation. That mother thinks of nothing at the time but her child's health, and when she comes home and tries to give the child the rhubarb, the vagueness of your answer at once comes to her consciousness so powerfully that she will be likely never to ask you another question nor to buy another ounce of syrup of rhubarb from you. Let there never be a doubt about the meaning of your words ; such looseness is bad in every position, but especially so with a physician or pharmacist. The sick and afflicted look for a decided voice and firm hand to guide them ; do not disappoint them by indecision."

The boy now returned with the sugar and handed it to the Junior, who had meanwhile weighed the liquorice, senna, and sulphur, and presently also weighed the sugar. The Proprietor, stepping back into the laboratory, directed the Junior to put some of the sugar into the large porcelain mortar, and then to add the oil of fennel, drop by drop, constantly stirring. While this was being done, he said :

" Whenever it is required to incorporate a volatile oil with a mixture of powders, you must first mix the oil with the powder of the greatest absorptivity ; in this case the sugar. Should you, for instance, mix the oil with the sulphur, the friction of the pestle would, indeed, divide it very finely; but the small particles of the oil would not be absorbed by the sulphur, and would consequently be driven off into the air by evaporation ; the whole laboratory would strongly smell of fennel, and the inexperienced clerk would say, ' Ah ! that is a strong preparation ; how it smells of fennel ! ? whereas, in reality, a large quantity of the fennel would be lost. We now add the remaining sugar and the other ingredients, and continue to stir until a uniformly one-colored powder is obtained."

" Shall I now fill this powder into the stock-bottle V asked the Junior after a while.

" Not yet. Sieve it through a No. 60 sieve before storing it."

The Junior went to the side of the laboratory, where he saw a number of sieves hanging in a row; but, being entirely unacquainted with the various implements, could not decide which one to take. The Proprietor came to his assistance and explained : " A No. 60 sieve is one that has sixty meshes to the linear inch. You see here is a No. 20, a rather coarse one ; this is No. 40 and this 60. The figures on the side of the frame are almost obliterated ; but every pharmacist of some experience can tell the different sizes without looking at the label or counting the meshes."

The Junior took the sieve and used it. "I should think," he said, " that if the powders are all pure and of the proper grade, sieving again would not be necessary."

" Theoretically, you are right," replied the Proprietor ; " but practice teaches us that this additional care is necessary. In the first place, there sometimes remain, in spite of the greatest care and continuous stirring, small lumps of some powder, — for instance, sulphur, — which will be detected on the sieve; and, secondly, when bought ready powdered (which you sometimes can't help doing), these powders may contain particles of the plant from which they come, or splinters of wood from the barrels in which they were shipped, or other accidental contaminations. All these must be removed. Now, after finishing the powder and cleaning the sieve, spend half an hour in reading about senna, liquorice, fennel, and sulphur, and you will have not only learned how to make compound liquorice powder, but also acquired a considerable amount of theoretical knowledge."