112 THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 



and useful profession, without a particle of proof, stamp him as 

 the worst professional demagogue that ever lived. And by what 

 remedy does he propose to free the medical and pharmaceutical 

 professions and the whole country of these 25,000 murderous men? 

 He dispenses himself! Really, his self-deception and lack of moral 

 courage in such a terrible national calamity would be humorous 

 if they were not so infinitely sad. 



There are two factors by which the evil of improper dispensing 

 and prescribing should be measured, science and public health. 

 The scientific side of this question will not be admitted as perti- 

 nent by those who indulge in these practices. They do so, because 

 they like it or because it pays. In fact, many physicians are frank 

 about it, and openly state that they make more money since they 

 dispense. They are at least honest and do not hunt for a scape- 

 goat. But, unless my long and careful observations deceive me, 

 these self-dispensing physicians are not the majority, their ranks 

 certainly become lighter, and men imbued with professional ideals 

 increase in numbers. Medical and pharmaceutical education have 

 made enormous forward-strides during the last generation and 

 uneducated men in either profession will gradually disappear. 

 Many schools of medicine require a high degree of preliminary edu- 

 cation of their students and their curriculum comprises a six years' 

 course. The trend in pharmacy is the same. Columbia Univer- 

 sity, of which the New York College of Pharmacy is a part, de- 

 mands six years study of their pharmacy students to acquire the 

 highest degree, that of Doctof of Pharmacy. Many of the western 

 state universities require four to five years before sending their 

 students out. The same spirit instigates the Boards of Pharmacy 

 in most of the states. It is knowledge, and knowledge alone, that 

 will keep physicians and pharmacists from encroaching on each 

 others' domain. There are hundreds of doctors of medicine that 

 were graduated pharmacists before they studied medicine. Nearly 

 every one of them is a prescriber, because he has studied pharma- 

 cognosy and materia medica. It is the consciousness of the im- 

 portance of these studies that keeps them from dispensing. Thus 

 light and truth are the great factors of reform in pharmacy as well 

 as everywhere else. In the same way physicians of eminence, men 

 who not only have learned a great deal but who have preserved 

 in their hearts the noble and high ideals of their youth, never think 

 of dispensing, because they recognize the need and the value of a 



