THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



I4T 



gree, would welcome very heartily. It 

 would doubtless increase the number of 

 students on the class roll, but whether it 

 would ultimately be an advantage to the 

 profession of pharmacy in the State of 

 Kansas is a question upon which I am 

 endeavoring to get some light, and trust 

 that it will be fairly and freely discussed 

 at this meeting in the Educational Sec- 



tion of our Association. In closing I 

 would say that I am convinced of one 

 thing, and that is that our educational 

 institutions of pharmacy in the United 

 States should come to an understanding, 

 and an effort be made in the direction of 

 greater uniformity in this matter of phar- 

 maceutical education in college and shop 

 experience. 



SHOULD GRADUATES IN PHAR/MACY BE COMPELLED TO PASS THE EXAM= 

 INATIONS OF BOARDS OF PHARMACY BEFORE BEING REGISTERED?* 



By henry R. slack, M. D., Ph. M., I.A ORANGE, GA. 



T N order to discuss this question intel- 

 ^ ligently, it is necessary to consider 

 briefly the relations existing between the 

 college and the Board, to the profession 

 and the public. 



The object of the true college is not 

 revenue, but to educate the pharmacist, 

 make him more proficient and useful, and 

 dignify his calling by elevating it to a 

 professional standing. Surely this is a 

 high and noble aim, worthy of our best 

 thought, but it is not identical with that 

 of the Board. The preamble introducing 

 the Georgia law sets it plainly forth, that 

 the Board is created to protect the public 

 against the indiscriminate sale of poisons 

 and dispensing prescriptions by incom- 

 petent persons. The laws in other States 

 are enacted for the same purpose. If they 

 are not, then as a distinguished professor 

 said in a paper read in New Orleans: ' 'The 

 sooner they are repealed the better ; legis- 

 lation for the benefit of the classes is pro- 

 ductive of much evil" (Prof. Remington, 

 Recognition of College Diplomas by 

 State Laws, 1891). I, however, take 

 issue with the professor, on recognition 

 of college diplomas, as a license to prac- 

 tice pharmacy. I hold that it is to the 



* Read at the 42d annual meeting of the American 

 Pharmaceutical Association, Sept., 1894. 



the college, for State laws not to recognize 

 interest of the public, the profession, and 

 dipolmas. 



This opinion is not the result of pre- 

 judice; but mature consideration and 

 seven years' experience and observation, 

 as examiner on a State Board, has forced 

 upon me this conclusion. My judgment 

 differs from my preconceived notions, for 

 when first appointed on the Board I 

 strongly advocated recognition of diplo- 

 mas; but "Times change and men often 

 change with them." The causes that 

 led to this change were these ; Our law 

 recognized both medical and pharmaceu- 

 tical diplomas; to extirpate the one it 

 was necessary to sacrifice the other. We 

 hesitated for some time, but seeing the 

 medical men outnumbered us nearly ten 

 to one in the legislative halls, we yielded, 

 and thus necessity compelled "building 

 better than they knew." 



No one in this presence will claim that 

 a medical diploma should confer on its 

 holder the legal right to practice phar- 

 macy, any more than he would hold to 

 the right to practice medicine on a phar- 

 maceutical diploma. Pennsylvania, the 

 mother of pharmaceutical colleges, is, or 

 was until recently the only State to re- 

 pudiate her own offspring and confer a 



