SOME OF MY CURIOUS CUSTOMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11544, 1 December 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOME OF MY CURIOUS CUSTOMERS.

REVELATIONS OF A WEST END CHEMIST.

I often think, said a well-knbwn West End chemist, that a chemist has more experience of " strange customers" than any other business or professional man. Even a doctor, whose range is more restricted in every way, does not encounter anything like the number of eccentrics who find their way into and out of a chemist's shop.

One particular customer puzzled me for years. He invariably brought two and often three prescriptions all given by different medical men, and usually bearing a strong resemblance to each other. I could never understand why a single bottle would not answer his purpose, until one day, in a moment of confidence, he told me.

" Nobody but a fool," he said, " would trust his health and perhaps his life to a single doctor, who might diagnose his case wrongly or prescribe wrongly. lam not a fool, and so when I want doctoring I always consult two or three medical men, and take their medicines alternately. 'In the multitude of counsellors,' you know, ' there is wisdom,' and the plan always answers in my case."

Another of my customers had a positive mania for medicine. He used to make a study of medical books ; and when he fancied that he had any of the symptoms described he would rush here in a state half of alarm and half of jubilation, and ask me to give him something to cure the complaint, which might be anything from diphtheria to diabetes. I usually gave him a simple tonic or laxative, and he invariably called a few days later to tell me that all the alarming symptoms had disappeared. Most of my cranky customers are men ; but I have a few women on my list. One of them has a mania for patent medicines, and I am quite sure has sampled every remedy that is advertised and asked me to procure them for her. Whether or not she takes them all I cannot say; but this I can —she enjoys robust health. Another good lady has constituted me phvsician-in-ordinary to her pet dogs, and rarely fails to ask me, at least once a w£ek, to prescribe for the " poor, dear creatures."

Yes, I have many customers who are the victims of secret habits. At one time a fashionable and very beautiful young lady used to drive up to my door purchase a pint of eau de Cologne every second or third day. I could not understand it at all, until one day, a few minutes after she had gone, a gentleman, who announced himself as the lady's husband, called and begged to know what she had purchased. When I told him he besought me never to sell her any more, as she was a confirmed dipsomaniac, and was gratifying her appetite in this way without the knowledge of her friends. Victims of the drug habit come here daily for their supplies of morphia, chloral, or laudanum. They are usually easily recognised by the shy, furtive way with which they come in and slip out again ; and many a time I have been rung up at night by some unhappy victim who has found that his or her supply was exhausted., Late one evening a well-dressed young woman fcrought a large bottle and 'asked me to fill it with sulphuric acid. She was obviously in a state of great excitement, and, my suspicions being aroused, I asked her for what purpose she wanted it. "What is that to you?" she retorted, violently; "if I like to spoil her beautythe viper—that's my business!" " If you will wait here a moment until I call a constable," I answered, we shall see whose Business it is." But before I could reach the door she had flown through it, hurling the bottle at my head as she went. Yee, that was certainly an unpleasant experience—my only one— I don't wish to repeat it.