He had made a mistake! that's all. He had compounded an ounce of tincture of nux instead of a drachm! Not that a drachm could be taken at a dose with impunity; but whatever the dose was, the patient was continually taking eight times as much as the physician intended to prescribe. Another reason of the failure of the prescribing physician meeting the expectation anticipated, is the use of old and inert medicines. Where a man's treasure is, his heart is also. An apothecary's interest is more in nostrums, tobacco, _soda_, etc., than in medicines; how, then, can he follow the excellent advice of Dr. Bullyn, in article "14, that he peruse often his wares, that they corrupt not." But the greatest cheat is in the "substituting" business; the "_quid pro quo_." Horse aloes may be bought for ten cents a pound. Podophyllin costs seventy-five cents an ounce. They each act as cathartic, and I have detected the former put in place of the latter. How is the physician to know the cheat? How is the patient to detect it? Perhaps the former _stuff_--aloes--may have given the victim the hemorrhoids. One dose may be quite sufficient to produce that distressing disease. This only calls for another prescription! So it looks a deal like a "you tickle me, and I'll tickle you" profession, at best. Thus the patient becomes disgusted, and resorts to our next--"Patent Medicines." In closing this chapter on Apothecaries, I must relate a little scene to which I was an eye-witness. Meantime, let me say to the "respectable druggist," Don't be offended if I have slighted you by leaving you out, in my description of the various kinds of apothecaries enumerated above. There is a respectable class of druggists whom I have not mentioned, and doubtless you belong to that order. On going home one evening, not long since, I observed several boys, loud and boisterous, surrounding a lamp post. As I approached, I heard, among the cries and vociferations,-- "Howld to it, Jimmy; it'll be the makin' of ye." I drew nearer, and discovered a sickly-looking lad leaning up against the lamp post, with the stump of a cigar in his mouth, and a taller boy endeavoring to hold him up by his jacket collar, while a short-set urchin was stooping behind to assist in the task. They were evidently endeavoring to teach "Jimmy" to smoke. The poor fellow was deathly sick, and faintly begged to be let off. "O, no, no. Stick to it, Jimmy; it'll be the makin' of yese," was repeated. "Sure, ye'll niver do for a _sample clark in a potecary shop_," said another, as he blew a cloud of smoke from his own cigar stump into the pale face of the victim to modern accomplishments. [Illustration: A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.] "General Grant smokes, Jimmy, and you'll never be a man if you don't learn," added a voice minus the brogue. A policeman here interfered, and rescued the wretched "Jimmy." "What is a sample clerk, my lad?" I asked of the boy who had used the above expression.