THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 119 



medicine at the drug store or the compounding- of a prescription 

 should not be considered as a commercial transaction, but as a 

 professional service and should be paid for accordingly. While 

 conditions in pharmacy are not ideal, rapid advancement is being 

 made and the attitude of the public toward the pharmacist, in- 

 fluencing as it does the financial returns of the business, will be 

 an important factor in pharmaceutical progress. 



In the early days of scientific pharmacy the education of the 

 apprentice was an important duty of the proprietor, but as 

 pharmacy developed, schools were organized for the purpose of 

 training men to act as retail pharmacists. Further progress, how- 

 ever, brought a demand for men trained to fill positions as 

 chemists for manufacturing houses, boards of pharmacy, drug 

 commissioners, etc. The schools have not met this demand and 

 in most cases men must be selected who have a pharmaceutical 

 education with very little chemical training or a good training 

 in chemistry and no knowledge at all of pharmacy. The knowl- 

 edge of chemistry or pharmacy which is lacking must then be 

 obtained and, as the latter is more easily acquired, such positions 

 are usually filled by men who have little or no knowledge of 

 pharmacy. This condition is very unsatisfactory as the chemist 

 may be handicapped for years by his ignorance of pharmaceutical 

 conditions and facts which have never happened to come to his 

 attention. It is true that attempts have been made by some of 

 the colleges, to provide courses for chemists who wish to take up 

 pharmaceutical work, but most of them have failed to provide train- 

 ing of the proper sort. Four-year pharmacy courses are often 

 built up by taking a two-year course as a basis and attaching here 

 and there a more or less unrelated subject until the time is reason- 

 ably well filled. Another idea is to devote a third year, after the 

 regular two-year pharmacy course, to food and drug analysis. 

 Bacteriology, botany, mineralogy, toxicology, urine analysis, water 

 analysis, fire assaying and other interesting subjects are available 

 for the construction of such courses; and there seems to be little 

 realization of the fact that four years is a very short time in which 

 to train men for pharmaceutical work, even if the curriculum is 

 well chosen. The ideal training would include a knowledge of 

 the retail drug business, although this is not absolutely essential ; 

 the essential features are instruction in pharmacy and as broad a 



