The announcement a number of weeks ago of the death of Mrs. Isabella Skinner Clarke-Keer brought to the mind the vivid story of how, in England, women pharmacists have had to fight for recognition. She lived to the ripe old age of 83, and during her lifetime she opened the door for women to become members of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and was the first president of the Woman Pharmacists' Association. Perhaps the story of those days of stress is worth the telling.

Isabella S. Clarke, as she then was, qualified as a pharmaceutical chemist on April 22, 1875. Whether she was the first woman to qualify I know not. She was certainly the first woman to apply to the Pharmaceutical Society for membership. The word "person" in the Pharmacy act meant a human

Miss Isabella Clark:-Keer, from a photograph taken in 1880.

being of either sex, and the Society had no chance to refuse to admit her to the examination hall. There had been discussions on the subject in the pharmaceutical press for some time, and as early as May, 1873, at the annual meeting, a resolution was proposed which ran like this:

"Inasmuch as the examiners of the Pharmaceutical Society are empowered by law to test the qualifications of persons-female as well as malebefore the State permits them to be registered as persons fitted to practice pharmacy this meeting is of opinion that it is contrary to the plain intention of the statutes to refuse admission to female persons who have met the legal tests and complied

with the regulations of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain."

After a long discussion the following amendment was carried by a very large majority: "That the question of admitting ladies as members, associates, apprentices or students be adjourned sine die."

It is interesting to note that when a slur was being cast upon them they were called "ladies."

DEFEATED BY ONE VOTE.

In the preliminary examination held in January that year there were two women among the successful candidates. Rose C. Minshull came first in order of merit out of the 313 candidates (166 were successful), and Louisa Stammwitz also took a good place. These two, with Alice M. Hart, applied to the Council in February to be elected as apprentices, or students. Their election, however, was defeated by one vote.

In 1877, at the October meeting of the Council, the application of Miss Clarke to be elected a member of the Society was considered. The pharmaceutical press had been regaled with a very heavy correspondence on the subject and a great amount of interest was aroused. The information is not available as to how many applications were sent in before the Council considered the matter, but the clamor of public opinion seemed to have a bearing upon the point. At this time women had the medical degree, and Miss Clarke was associated with the Hospital for Women and with Miss Elizabeth Garrett (afterwards Mrs. Garrett Anderson), who did so much for women in the medical profession. Women could practice pharmacy, but organized pharmacy continued to adopt the illogical attitude of refusing them the rights of membership in the Society.

On this occasion Miss Clarke's application was refused by eight votes to four.

In that very month Rose Coombes Minshull and Louisa Stammwitz passed the minor examination. In due course (in November 1877) their applications for election as associates came before the Council.

The Council refused to elect them. The matter was referred to the next annual meeting.

This took place on May 15, 1878, and after a long discussion a vote was taken. The president declared that the amendment to admit women was lost by a large majority. His statement was chal

lenged and the votes were counted, the result being 59 to 57.

At the adjourned meeting held a few days later the matter was again mentioned and it was left for the new Council to decide the best course to adopt.

At a meeting in June, 1878, it was moved that Miss Clarke, having passed the major examination, be elected a member of the Society. Another long discussion. A vote resulted in a tie. The chairman gave his deciding vote against the ladies.

Friends set to work in earnest. Candidates for the Council were pledged to support the admission of women to the rights of membership on the same terms as men, and when the next annual meeting arrived, May, 1879, the hardy annual again appeared. This time the voting on the first count was 66 for and 65 against the ladies. A division was called with this result: 81 against and 78 for. So the resolution was lost again.

However it was understood that this expression represented only the opinion of the few members who happened to be present and that the Council would take its own course. It came as no great surprise, therefore, when, on October 1, 1879, Mr. Hampson proposed that Miss Clarke and Miss Minshull (who had now passed the major) be elected members that it was passed with but one dissentient.

A TEACHER OF MEDICAL STUDENTS.

In her purely personal capacity Miss Clarke was an inspiration. She commenced her pharmaceutical career in a small dispensary for women and children just off Edgware Road, London. After qualifying she opened a shop in the Paddington district and there used to teach dispensing to the women medical students. She was afterwards appointed tutor at the "Royal Free" School of Medicine for Women. In 1883 she married Mr. Thomas Keer, who had a business in Bruton Street in which she helped. As one of her old apprentices, Miss Annie Neve, says of her in The Pharmaceutical Journal (Sept. 18, '26):

"Mrs. Clarke-Keer had an amiable and engaging personality. She was well-informed, and a brisk, instructive, and entertaining conversationalist, and she was actively and sympathetically interested in all movements for social reform. She kept a warm heart for old friends, and up to the end made new friends wherever she went. The initiative, energy, moral courage and enthusiasm for the advancement of pharmacy and for the betterment of the lot of all who toil and suffer were a heartening and ennobling example to all who came within the sphere of influence."

Many of our modern young ladies, with their "independence" and "careers," seem to think that all their liberties have been won by the smoking of cigarettes during the last twelve years or so. giving of the vote was but a step. The real pioneers

The

were those who defied convention and who fought for the right to live their own lives when women were expected to let their men-folk think for them. Fifty years ago the victory was won. Harriet Martineau, "the deaf girl of Norwich"; the Brontés; George Eliot; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Olive Schriener and others (including those named in this article) laid the foundation of intellectual freedom for women. Pharmacy was quicker than some of the other professions to realize that women had a place and a right in it.

The Complexion of the Woman Who is Reducing.

It is estimated that right now around fifty per cent of the women past forty in the average community are reducing, and what we are interested in at this happy moment-what I am going to write about-is how we can help 'em keep their faces. from becoming wrinkled.

Lots more women would try to reduce were it not for this fear.

The American people are notably good livers, and no women in the whole world can equal our American housewife for delicious cooking. That's part of the trouble.

Here is the procedure-tell the women this: "Every morning spend a couple of minutes working a good tonic cream into the skin on the face, neck, hands, and forearms. Use a rotary motion and do not neglect the lines at the side of the nose or the surface just back of the ears.

"This will stimulate the circulation.

"Bathe the face in quite warm water, using a mild, pure soap. Dry gently. Rinse with cool water. This will only take another minute. Have a small piece of ice at hand, covered with clean white silk, or very fine, old muslin. Iron all parts of the skin which have been treated with the ice, Dabble spending three minutes in this process. upon the surface of the skin some good astringent lotion.

"You will have spent five or six minutes and the sense of well-being will repay you for the slight effort.

"Then proceed with your regular morning treatment, powdering lightly to protect the surface from the dust and grime of the day.

"At night bathe the face with a cleansing cream. Bathe the face in warm, soapy water, and if possible use a vibrator for five or ten minutes. Rinse the face in cool water, apply the astringent lotion, and retire content in the knowledge that nature will do her part while you sleep."

It will pay to give space to a window display of "Complexion Aids For the Woman Who Is Reducing."

It is easier to prevent wrinkles than it is to get rid of them.-Lillian LeJeune.

I am far from being in the Methuselah class, but I can distinctly remember when it was a common occurrence for a customer to bring in three or four old bottles and request five cents' worth of glycerin in one, a nickel's worth of syrup of ipecac in another, the same amount of paregoric in a third, and a jitney's worth of Brown mixture in the other bottle. Usually the bottles all had to be washed, and for this labor and material the druggist would receive twenty cents, provided the customer didn't have a charge account.

TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

Although even at that period there were some men in business who realized that such trade meant nothing but a waste of time and trouble, the majority of druggists never seemed to give it a thought; they just accepted the situation as a matter of course.

I wonder how much respect folks would have for a physician who charged a dime for an office consultation, or for a D.D.S. who would extract a molar for a nickel?

Not so very many years ago a firm of manufacturing pharmacists started a campaign to lift the peroxide of hydrogen business out of the ten-cent class and into the twenty-five-cent class, and they surely had an uphill job on their hands. To a lot of retailers, who had become so accustomed to selling that particular item for ten and fifteen cents, the idea of getting twenty-five cents for a fourounce bottle seemed as big a job as digging the Panama Canal. It was only after the firm in question, in coöperation with a number of more progressive pharmacists, put the thing over in a big way that druggists generally could be convinced the idea was capable of accomplishment.

If some of the men in drug stores who are constantly grumbling because their volume is small would expend a little of their energy in trying to replace trifling sales whenever possible by suggesting larger purchases, it's dollars to doughnuts that in a little while they'd find a decided improvement in their business.

Here is one instance of what can be done by way of educating folks along the line indicated: A few nights ago a woman came in our store and asked for a cheap hot-water bottle. The clerk proceeded to show her what she asked for, but endeavored at the same time to ascertain why she wanted a lowpriced article. By a little adroit questioning he learned that she had purchased an expensive one

some time ago, but because she knew nothing about the care of rubber goods the bag had been abused and quite naturally failed to give satisfactory service. A little advice on the proper care of rubber goods, brief instructions about filling, emptying and storing, were gratefully received by the customer. And on being assured that a good, high-grade, dependable hot-water bottle was safer, more satisfactory and more economical in every way than a cheap one, she purchased a three-and-ahalf-dollar bottle instead of the dollar one she had come in to buy.

A friend of mine has a busy pharmacy, employing a good-sized sales force. He is on the street floor of a big down-town office building. Last year the lease expired and in order to get a five-year extension the proprietor had to submit to a fifty-per-cent boost in rent. The store was doing practically capacity business, so the increase made it absolutely necessary that the sales effort be made to yield more profit.

Raising prices on proprietaries or competitive merchandise would have meant driving trade away, so my friend decided that the only way out was to increase individual sales and to sell more profitable merchandise. He started out by trying to eliminate trifling sales, the first move being to sidetrack fiveand ten-cent items as fast as seemed practicable and to replace them with higher-priced numbers. He instructed his clerks to forget or ignore, whenever it could be done without antagonizing trade, the smallest sizes of proprietaries and to tactfully offer the larger sizes.

FORCING THE ISSUE.

This policy was carried into every department all over the store. Cheap bristle goods, rubber goods and sundries of all kinds were kept out of sight and only shown when it was not possible to sell better goods at higher prices. This man was fighting for his life; it was a case of sink or swim, and he simply had to put it across or go out of business.

Various means were adopted in order to keep the sales force on its toes and to help along the campaign for bigger sales and increased profits. The proprietor had noticed that whenever customers asked for a package of absorbent cotton the clerks, from force of habit, almost invariably handed out the half-ounce size and made no effort at trying to sell a larger package. The cotton stock was kept directly back of the serving counter where it was most convenient, so he proceeded to remove all the

half-ounce packages to the stock room in the rear of the store. As a result the sales of half-ounce size, which had always been the fastest seller, dropped almost to zero.

This is a fair sample of what happened in every department of the business. Concerted efforts were made to build bigger sales and to sell higher-priced goods, and in the greater number of cases they succeeded. Understand, please, this pharmacist was too shrewd a merchant to turn customers away because they couldn't get the kind of goods they wanted; the cheaper grades were carried in stock as before, but they were not starred or prominently displayed. Rather was preferred position given to the better grade of merchandise and an effort made to sell the higher-priced article first.

Some of the clerks were agreeably surprised to find that instead of the twenty-five- and thirty-fivecent tooth brushes being the leaders, the fifty- and sixty-five-cent brushes topped the list. And so on. Of course it is not possible to sell first quality goods to all customers. Some people will insist on a cheap or medium-priced article and it is only good business to supply what they demand. The big mistake many retailers make is this: because most of the demand in their section is for ordinary or cheap goods, they do not consider it necessary to stock the better grades. You cannot sell the goods unless you carry them in stock-and it's not always possible to know what will or will not sell until you

try.

Some years ago a friendly jobber's salesman was showing me a line of high-grade, imported bath towels. They were mighty fine goods and the price was attractive. However I told the salesman that I was not interested because I couldn't sell that sort of merchandise in my store.

"Did you ever try?" he asked. I admitted that I never had.

"Then how do you know you can't?" he inquired.

I was open to conviction, the salesman was enthusiastic and insistent, and so I ordered a trial assortment of the towels. They sold out quickly, and from that time on I always carried bath towels in stock and consider them a profitable side-line. It may be possible that some of your customers go elsewhere when they desire better goods than you carry in stock; this sort of thing happens oftener than many business men suspect. An incident that occurred only a short while ago will serve to illustrate what I'm driving at. An old friend of my school-of-pharmacy days has one of the leading drug stores in a good-sized city in an adjoining State. The leading doctor of the place, who is also the family physician of the druggist in question, comes each year for a two weeks' sojourn at the sea-shore resort where I am located at present. This physician and his wife visit our pharmacy frequently and are quite good customers. On their

the store and their purchases amounted to a little over eighteen dollars, mostly for sundries and bristle goods. Included in their purchases were a $6.50 hair brush and a half-dozen imported English wash cloths that retail at fifty cents each.

I was a bit curious to know why this doctor who was friendly with his local druggist should spend so much money in the pharmacy of a man he didn't even know and surely had no interest in. A few weeks later I happened to visit the city in question and I dropped in to see my old college friend. While chatting with him I got the answer, and it was quite simple after all. The highest-priced hair brush in my friend's pharmacy was a two-dollar one, and the best wash-cloth he carried in stock was a rather sleazy affair that he retailed at two for twenty-five cents. The reason these particular customers of his spent a tidy sum of money for drug-shop merchandise in the store of a stranger two hundred miles from home was because their home-town druggist does not carry the quality of goods they want and are willing to pay for.

In conclusion I might state that we may as well face the facts. In many localities rents, heat, light, clerk hire, and all other costs of conducting business have ascended, and there is no immediate prospect of them coming down. And about the only way out for a lot of us, if we wish to remain in business, is to educate our customers along the lines I have indicated. We must strive to sell higher grade, better-priced goods whenever possible.

A Suggestion.

The following was a puzzler. A druggist, having an "I" permit, decided to discontinue the sale of intoxicating liquor on the first of July. He had on hand about 11⁄2 gallons of whisky which he wished to dispose of. He was told by the prohibition department that he would need a special permit to sell this in one quantity to some one having an "I" permit, and that he would need a bond to cover the transaction. The bond would cost him $20. The value of the whisky was about $19. The collector of revenue told him that he could possess but could not sell unless he secured the retail liquor dealers' license. His prohibition permit would expire December 31, 1926. Now what advice would you have given-to empty out the whisky and lose. the $19; secure a bond which would cost him $20; or to wait until the first of October and secure a R. L. D. license for the balance of the year up to July, 1927, which would cost him $18.75, and then sell the whisky between the date of October 1 and December 31 on prescription in half-pint quantities. The druggist chose the latter method of disposition, although unwilling to be a retail liquor

dealer. The Ohio Druggist.

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Didn't it occur to the man that he might have

Some men pursue their hobbies intensively, others less enthusiastically. And sometimes, after a while, a hobby may become more than a pastime. It may take on some of the major characteristics of an occupation.

And sometimes it pays handsomely.

We are about to give some of the experiences of a man who has had all this happen to him-Glenn Staines, Detroit, Michigan.

Mr. Staines is proprietor of one of the largest and best drug stores of which the city boasts, centrally located in the Addison Hotel. His hobby is the raising of police dogs.

Four years ago Mr. Staines lost a fairly valuable bulldog, by accidental drowning. He had to have

Mr. Staines and one of his dogs.

a dog; from early childhood he never had been without one. And shortly after the permanent immersion of the pet just mentioned he learned of a thoroughbred German police dog which was available in Philadelphia; a female Doberman Pinscher. He asked a salesman friend of his to buy the dog the next time he made Philadelphia.

Within half a month Judy arrived in Detroit. "Of Detroit" was added to her name-Judy of Detroit.

bilities in Judy. After owning her but a few short months he entered her in various shows, and she won; won in Detroit, in Flint, Michigan; in Erie, Pa., and at the Springfield Exposition.

After this success Mr. Staines' hobby became even more pronounced; he realized that with a dog possessing the appearance, quality and winning power of Judy there was money to be made. He studied blood lines and became an expert on Doberman Pinschers. He then had the good fortune to purchase probably one of the finest stud dogs then in America, at that time, Champion Dyno von Wiesengrund. Dyno was imported from Germany and shortly thereafter was declared American champion-one of the finest show specimens that ever stared judges in the face, and from the best blood lines Germany had ever produced.

With this excellent pair, then, he started breeding, and since that time has acquired a remarkable line of dogs. He became determined to make money, and to do this he found it necessary to have a kennel suitably located for dog raising. Accordingly he went to the outskirts of Detroit, eleven miles from the City Hall, and purchased four acres of wooded land.

"Pontchartrain" became registered as the name of the kennel; Pontchartrain is the surname of all dogs bred by Mr. Staines; it can in no way legitimately be connected with dogs either in the United States or Canada other than those bred by Mr. Staines.

The kennel itself is very presentable indeed. The building is 16 feet wide by 54 feet long. A center aisle, with a door at either end, permits of entrance from both ways. Twenty compartments, ten on either side of the aisle, house adult dogs and each compartment has a window fitted with two screens. Outer screens of fine mesh keep flies out; inner screens of coarse wire protect the fine screens from the dogs' paws-they jump up on their benches and rest their forefeet on the window frame.

A small door operated from the center aisle by chains and pulleys affords entrance from each compartment to the runways. Inside and out, the building is painted white. The inside is whitewashed once a month, and each morning and night is sprayed with Kreso Dip to prevent fly-breeding and keep away other pests.

One side of the kennel is devoted to younger dogs,