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Valentine's Meat-Juice

In Typhoid Fever Valentine's Meat-Juice demonstrates its Ease of Assimilation and Power of Restoring and Strengthening.

1. Burney Yeo, M. D., Professor of Therapeutics, King's College, London, in the well known work, "Food in Health and Disease": "In a very severe case of Typhoid, under our care in King's College Hospital, with most alarming and profuse hemorrhage, we carried out a rigorous method of feeding with remarkably satisfactory results. The clear indication was to keep the intestines absolutely at rest and to allow no debris of food to pass through to excite peristaltic action. It was necessary therefore to give food which, while adequate to sustain and strengthen the patient, should be wholly absorbed in the stomach and upper part of the small intestines. To give milk might be fatal. For our purpose we selected VALENTINE'S MEAT-JUICE, giving one teaspoonful in a wineglassful of cold water every three hours, with one teaspoonful of brandy. The patient's diet was absolutely limited to these quantities for seven days. The plan answered admirably and the patient made a perfect recovery and fairly rapid convalescence." For Sale by American and European Chemists and Druggists.

VALENTINE'S MEAT-JUICE CO.,
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, U. S. A.

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The knowledge that a man can use is the only real knowledge; the only knowledge that has life and growth in it and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like raindrops off the stones.-FROUDE.

The Medical World

C. F. TAYLOR, M.D., Editor and Publisher.
A. L. RUSSELL, M.D., Associate Editors.
J. C. ROMMEL, M.D.,

E. S. TAYLOR, Business Manager.

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Philadelphia, Pa.

Dispensing By Physicians.

No. 8

The dispensing of medicins by physicians to their patients is the point around which centers the tilt between doctors and druggists. Physicians, on the whole, are writing fewer and fewer prescriptions and dispensing more and more. As one result, the druggists are having much less prescription work to do. The druggists feel that, having learned the art of compounding, they should be given that work to do. Likewise the man with a trade, when he is out of work, says that, having learned a trade, he should be given work at it. But when there is none of that work to do, who can give him employment at it? The druggist, having learned the art of compounding and assuming a knowledge of practise of medi

cin, essays to treat any of his customers who come to him asking him to do so. But the young doctor, just graduated, sits in his office around the corner and argues that, having learned and been licensed to practise medicin and treat the sick, the sick people should come to him for that purpose. But the druggist continues to treat the sick without charge and sell them medicins at full price, and asks the young doctor to write prescriptions for him to fill. The argument, then, that druggists should be given compounding to do is as faulty as an argument that the sick people must come to the young doctor in their neighborhood instead of exercising their choice and going to whatever doctor they please.

What is the object of customers asking a druggist for medicin instead of going to a doctor to have him prescribe? They believe they are not very sick and think it will be cheaper. This is therefore an argument for dispensing by the doctor. The people wish to save expense. The druggists' tendency is toward higher prices, while the people require cheaper drugs. The ones who fill this need are the ones who will succeed.

In a talk with a wholesale druggist recently he said, that druggists should be paid a minimum of 75 cents for each prescription they fill. This is an enormous jump from the former figure of 30 to 40 cents that heretofore has prevailed in most communities. It makes sickness a very expensive-not to say exorbitant-event in the average family in the course of a year. It would be absolutely impossible for one family to pay, that we have knowledge of. In this family the baby took sick with broncho-pneumonia. Immediately after his recovery three older children took measles, then one got mumps, then all three got whooping cough and the baby got the measles. The father is a driver of a wagon. Could he afford to buy medicin at 75 cents a prescription for two months and also pay his doctor? The wholesale druggist admitted that the price was high, but added that the druggist might as well.

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charge it, "as they would spend their money anyway." This is an unusual and unfortunate position concerning the misfortunes of the masses, of the people. There was no suggestion made that the prescription itself was worth that amount of money.

The druggists assert that they are a necessity as a check on physicians, to prevent administration of overdoses of medicin, accidentally or intentionally, and to avoid all other possible mistakes or blunders. As a matter of fact, a druggist is of no use whatever as a check in that manner, for a druggist is as liable to error as a physician and there is no means of detecting a druggist's error. No one can tell in a majority of instances whether a druggist has compounded a prescription properly or not. No one can tell whether the proper ingredients are used or omitted, whether short weight is used, whether the material is properly and thoroly triturated so that each pill, capsule. suppository or other preparation has its exact proportion of each ingredient. In fact, all the possibilities of error that the druggist charges to the physicians' readymade tablet are inherent in the druggists' own preparation. He is just as human and just as liable to make a mistake as any other human being.

The same quality of drugs is used in drug stores as in doctors' offices, in spite of the great howl of the druggists that doctors use poor drugs. We know something about drugs and about some drugstores. We have purchased some inert drugs in drugstores, also. Druggists are just as anxious to strike a bargain in purchasing drugs as are physicians, and will always purchase them as advantageously as possible. Hence all sorts of discounts and inducements are offered the druggists, even to the point of giving them 10 or 15% commissions on all orders for drugs sent in by doctors in their community, on which orders the doctors pay net prices.

To the public, the dispensing of remedies by the doctor is a distinct boon. In place of the 50 or 75 cents paid the druggist the patient pays the doctor usually nothing additional for the medicin or at the most 25 cents. This may look like a small sum to save, but where there has been a long period of sickness it amounts to a great deal. The druggist collects his money when he hands over the prescription and is always ahead of the game. The doctor must await the financial recovery of the family before he gets his remuneration. So therefore it is

better for doctor and family if he can dispense the medicins as needed.

The question of the safety of the patient as regards the remedies dispensed is a very important one, the druggists make the most extravagant claims for the great security of patients in taking remedies compounded by them, and boldly assert that such security is lacking in medicins dispensed by doctors. But druggists have no means of checking themselves in filling prescriptions. Placing a mark on the prescription beside the name of the remedy is no guarantee that the remedy was used as directed. The druggist could have picked up the wrong bottle. In a conversation on this subject with a wholesale druggist who asserted that physicians should not dispense at all, giving for one reason the possibility of error by the doctor, he was asked if the druggists did not make mistakes. He admitted, "That's it, they make barrels of them!"

The intelligent, conscientious doctor is capable of dispensing remedies to his patient and it is a blessing to his patient.

Character Building.

A multi-millionaire died the other day and left many dollars-to a fool. Absorbed in his business, the great Captain of Industry left his son to grow up how he might, and he did grow up as the unprotected son of a wealthy man will. Many things and many persons conspired to ruin the boy. He never learned the lessons of self-restraint, self-control, selfreliance. How could he? The ever-ready paternal checkbook blocked the way. Servants kowtowed to him; self-seekers flattered him; greedy men sought to encourage him in scattering the coin they gathered in his track, and women tried to fasten their tentacles about him. What chance had the unfortunate boy? At heart he was not a half bad sort, but the weeds flourished in the neglected garden and choked the plants of value.

Doctor, how about that son of yours? It is all very well to attend to your practise, and to get in your daily round of calls, study your bad cases at night and in rare leisure moments, to read your journals and get in a bit of advance work at the new books. You find time to attend society meetings, and even to prepare a paper for one of them. But how about the boy? Nuisance, isn't he? Always needing things, getting expensive notions and de

vising ways to draw money from your lean purse; getting into scrapes and scraps that take you and your thoughts away from their proper channels. So silly, too. So many things he seems ignorant of, that to you are matters of course; so many things he seeks to argue or mistakes entirely, that are axiomatic to you.

Consider him. He is older than you realized; he is learning many things from many sources, quite a few of which are objectionable; he is developing habits, thoughts and beliefs that are not yours or approved by you; he is selecting companions and intimates that you may not like.

You have no time to give him, but at the garage, the poolroom, the saloon, there are those who have time for him. There are women who have begun to cast eyes at him, and to estimate your possible monetary Some mother is going to shift her daughter's meal-ticket to you soon, if she can; and many an older and wiser man has succumbed to woman's wiles.

resources.

What that boy needs most is a father. Talk to him—and see how quickly he drops all these others for you. He would rather chum with you than with anybody else. You don't realize it, but he likes you and has a great respect for you. If only you would unbend, get acquainted with him, get to know the processes of his mentality, his thoughts, wants and aspirations, it would do you as well as him good.

Don't expect him to be an old man; that would ruin any boy. He should be all boy, with all the faults a boy requires. There are millions of things you know that he doesn't; but you have been many years acquiring this knowledge, and he will need as long. He does not know the value of money-let him earn what he gets. He shows no inclination to save-shifts from one fad to another, spending money on each that is lost. Well, do you want him to become a miser in early youth? forbid. Money is the most worthless thing on earth in itself, and only of value as it can be exchanged for real treasures.

God

Teach him Franklin's sage maxim-save half what he makes, and put it in permanent investment. That teaches the priceless lessons of self-restraint and forethought, and yet leaves him the power of enjoying what money brings. When a man loses the faculty of enjoying spending money he ought to be buried. Just think how much expense that would save him!

Encourage his notions. He wants to build a sail-boat. Well, why not? You do not know what genius he may be developing. Anyway, he learns to use tools and exercises his brain as well. Wants a printing press? Surely-and he may develop it into the business of his life. Automobile? Flying machine? Well

Did old man Wright try to lick the cussed notions out of those sons of his? Did Edison's daddy make any effort to make him attend to his plowing and stop wasting time and money on those fool inventions? Jay Gould had a good thing in that clerkship in a country store. Why didn't he stick to it instead of flying off about the country, buying old tanneries. that never made expenses, and whatnot?

You, yourself, do not know it all. That boy's notions may develop some latent germ in your own head. Very likely his idea may prove wrong; and that means one mistake he will not make in after life. Possibly his next idea, and the five following may turn out as badly-and we know a man whose seventh trial made him a very rich man so rich that his daughter married a foreign nobleman who beat her and gambled away her fortune. Is the per

severance that leads to a seventh trial after six failures worth nothing? Rather butter both sides of the boy's bread and have him to go thru life merely as a rich man's noodle-pated son?

There are some very few-boys that even money cannot spoil; but as a rule we will take the kid that has to depend on himself.

BUSINESS TALK TO DOCTORS

It is a mistake to think that because a man has been successful at one thing, he can succeed at anything. Sometimes a successful man thinks that of himself, and makes a great mistake. A much safer rule would be for a successful man to confine himself to the line in which he has succeeded. That is proven. That he may succeed in a different line is unproven until he has succeeded in the new line-but his experience in the new line may be failurecomplete failure. And the failure is likely to involve many others, who have been led to place funds in his hands for his new ventures by his "demonstrated success" in

complete failure. When a man loses

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