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When a prescription is for an infant or a young child, it is a great safeguard against error in compounding to put at the head of the prescription, "For an infant," or "For a child,” or "For little Willie," etc.

Remember that your pharmaceutical brother has many and enslaving duties-not only his drug-mixing and drugselling slavery, but he must also act as a directory and a human timepiece and untiring guide-post for his whole neighborhood. He must endure the postage-stamp and City Directory nuisance and has a whole troop of other "customers who do not buy anything," also has to pour out his soul on all street accidents and on all cases of sudden sickness that may seek his store; endure his crew of tobacco-and-cigar and soda-water bores until midnight and then answer night-bell in the wee hours of morning, and surely he, like other persons, requires some rest and relaxation; therefore do not order mixtures requiring tedious manipulations, direct filthy ointments to be made, dirty plasters to be spread, suppositories to be molded, or other unpleasant duties to be performed on Sunday or during sleeping-hours unless they be urgently needed.

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S a physician you will hold two relations to your patients: first, during sickness you will feel personal interest in them and scientific interest in their afflictions, give them your best skill and attention, employing whatever remedies will be most surely, most safely, and most rapidly beneficial. This must ever be your leading purpose, and to this you should add humane sympathy and commiseration. Later, when, by recovery or death, your interest and skill are no longer required, you will enter upon the second, or business relation, and then, unless poverty forbid, you should demand and secure, in a business-like manner, a just remuneration for your services; for you must be clothed and fed, and must support those dependent upon you, just as other people do; for every man naturally and properly looks to whatever occupation he follows for support. Therefore neither false delicacy nor fear of offending those who owe you fees should be allowed to outweigh your own necessities, break up the business feature of your profession, interfere with your rules in money matters, or prevent your knowing where sentiment ends and business begins. Being human, you must live by your practice, just as the priest lives by the altar, the lawyer by the bar, and all other people by their vocations. The practice of medicine is the work of your life; it is as honest, as useful, and as legitimate a branch of human industry as any other on the face of the globe. No one earns his means of living more

fairly few perhaps more dearly-than the conscientious physician, and both common-sense and vital necessity require that while enjoying:

The luxury of doing good,

and the pleasure of healing the sick you should also try to provide a comfortable home and the means of support for yourself and for those dependent on your labors.

This you cannot do unless you have a business system, for upon system depends both your professional and your financial success, for no man is at his best when handicapped by poverty, besides:

Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed,

and no one can practice medicine with clearness and penetration, earnestness and success, if his mind be depressed and temper vexed by the debts he owes, and personally harassed and dunned by hungry creditors at every corner; or who is uncertain where the next meal for himself and his dependents is to come from; or who walks the floor fearing that the next knock at the door will be the sheriff's, truly a picture of :

Wolf behind, precipice in front!

These and other cares that poverty entails dwarf the hand-tomouth physician's mind and body, destroy his manly independence, and cripple his work:

A broken spirit drieth the bones,

and it is only when free from the mental solicitude of debt and poverty that one's mind and energies can do full justice to his attainments; indeed, to know that you are making a living is one of the necessary stimuli of life, and you will see :

Anticipated rents and bills unpaid

Force many a doctor into the shade.

In these days neither untiring study, nor excessive zeal

as a humanitarian, nor the bubble of applause will enable you to live on wind:

All leaf and no fruit,

or lift you above the demands of the tailor, the instrumentmaker, the bookseller, the grocer, the butcher, and other C. O. D. creditors, not one of whom would accept your reputation for professional devotion or of working for philanthropy, or your smiles, thanks, and blessings as his pay; no:

Wrinkled purses make wrinkled faces,

and even the conductor will put you off the street-car which is carrying you to your patient if you do not have the nickel to pay your fare.

It is, naturally, pleasant to be praised, and to be told of fadeless laurels, and that by working for nothing you will:

Gild your name while living,
And your memory when dead,

yet even were such verbal praise and air-built popularity to embrace your whole region, neither it nor checks on the Bank of Fame will fill your market-basket, pay your rent, or feed your horse. Although dollar-getting is neither the foremost nor the chief incentive to the true physician, it always has been and ever must be one of the objects, for no one can support his practice and pay his debts without a money feature:

Necessity has sharp teeth,

and, if those you serve do not pay you, you cannot live by your calling, and you will very soon tire of all work and no pay, and of living-like artists and poets-on hope, instead of assets. Almost as well to starve without a patient.

You will find that each physician collects his own fees in his own way; yours should be about as follows: Let neither indolence nor overwork prevent your giving proper attention

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to your collections, and in all money affairs be systematic and correct, for it is as important to charge your visits as it is to make them; adopt it a rule never to retire to bed without making some kind of record of every visit made, and of all other services rendered during the day.

The nearer your financial arrangements approach the cash system, the better it will be for you and your dependents. Frequent accounts are best for the physician. If he renders his bills promptly, it teaches people to look for them and to prepare to pay them, just as they do other family expenses. It is even better to submit to a reduction in bills for prompt payment, than to let them stand and run the risk of losing them through the pay-when-you-please system. Besides, after settling promptly, many patients will feel free to send for you again and make another bill, even in moderate sickness, instead of dallying with home remedies or quack medicines, as they might do if they still owed you.

You should render your bills while they are small, and your services still vividly remembered, not only because gratitude is the most evanescent of all human emotions, but for another reason: if you are neglectful or shamefaced and do not send your bills promptly, it will create the opinion that you do not believe in prompt collecting, or are not dependent upon your practice for a living, or have no need of money; and that, even were they to pay, you would merely throw what they gave you on your pile or put it in bank; or that you do not hold this or that person to your business rule, or are not uneasy about what they owe you. And if you foster a bad system of bill-rendering, a bad system of bill-paying will grow up around you, and great loss will result; because some will die, others will abscond and others become unable to pay:Long credits make short friendships and sure losses.

Asking for payment reminds patients that there is still a little

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