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Apothecaries' profit is become a bye-word, denoting something

uncommonly extravagant. This great apparent profit, however, is

frequently no more than the reasonable wages of labour. The skill

of an apothecary is a much nicer and more delicate matter than

that of any artificer whatever; and the trust which is reposed in

him is of much greater importance. He is the physician of the

poor in all cases, and of the rich when the distress or danger is

not very great. His reward, therefore, ought to be suitable to

his skill and his trust; and it arises generally from the price

at which he sells his drugs. But the whole drugs which the best

employed apothecary in a large market-town, will sell in a year,

may not perhaps cost him above thirty or forty pounds. Though he

should sell them, therefore, for three or four hundred, or at a

thousand per cent.