Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1888 — DRUGGIST'S PROFITS [ARTICLE]

DRUGGIST'S PROFITS

Anything Less Thau Fife Hundred Per Cent., Considered Small. Chicago Herald, ■ “Five grains of tannic acid in four ounces of distilled water,” demanded one bf the Herald readers of a corner 'druggist, the other day. The customer, who had occasion to use the astringent wash called lor, had brought own bottle along. “Ho# much?” he asked, after the solution had been put up. “Twenty-five cents,” said the druggist, unblushingly. The customer stood for a mohient. then he paid, and went out and took liis lunch at a dairy shop instead of Charlie Kern’s place. This was necessary, because his wife keeps tab on his pocket money and Liebotslianer beer is ten cents a glass. Retail druggists pay 30 cents per ounce for tannic acid and 40 cents per gallon for distilled water, if they don’t make the latter themselves. Hence the ingredients asked for cost the soda fountain man 1 5-16 cents —1 cent for the water and the balance for the constituent part of the solution. In charging 25 cents the druggist made a .fraction over 1,000 per cent, profit,which beats the plumber. The chances are that if the customer had presented a physician’s prescription instead of the verbal order he would have been charged 50 cents, 25 per cent, of which would have gone to the prescribing doctor at the monthly settlement. The little incident explains why down town druggists can afford to pay such exorbitant rents as are asked for locations like those on the corners of Madison and State and Madison and Clark % streets. The latter stand, upon a lease now about expired, cost *12,000; the former stand—a room 20 by 16 feet - not less than SIB,OOO. There are many remedies asked for by suffering humanity and paid for at a rate that would make a pawnbroker, with his paltry 120 per cent, rate of interest, turn green with envy. Chemicals are sold at apothecaries’ weight—one pound of twelve ounces, the ounce to eight drachms, the drachm to three scruples, and a scruple of twenty grains. Hence there are 5,760 grains in a pound. The reader is perhaps aware of the beneficial effects of bromide of potassium. He is apt to call at his druggist’s the morning after a “session” for a dose of bromide “in his’n.” He is charged 25 cents—by the way, there seems to be nothing cheaper than a quarter in a drug store -of which amount 10 cents is for the bromide and 15 cents for the benzine. The retail druggist pays 75 cents for a pound of bromide, hence 10 cents for the usual dose —3 grains—means more than 1,000 per cent, profit for the druggist, the cost to the latter for the 3 grains being not quite 1-28 part of a cent. The sober man’s stomach may “get out of gear” as well as the toper’s. He is apt to call for a quinine pill or two,* These pills are usually purchased ready made by the druggist. They are sugar-coated and generally of a grain apiece. The retail druggist would pay about 75 cents per ounce for quinine. The wholesale manufacturer has it for about half that price. The pills retail at the rate of a cent apiece, but many druggists charge twice that amount. The average dose is three grains, for which ten cents is charged. Five grains wouldn’t cost any more, but many people hesitate to take that much “at a lick.” Now, 10 cents for three grains means nearly 500 per cent. Verily, the plumber could learn from the druggist.