10 



C. U. C. P. ALUMNI JOURNAL 



HERMANN HAGER'S CENTENARY. ^- 



By Otto Raubenheimer. 

 N. Y. C. P. '88. 



History of pharmacy is one of the 

 sadly neglected subjects in our present 

 l)harmaceutical education. The sooner 

 the apprentice and student becomes ac- 

 quainted with pharmaceutical history, 

 more love for professional pharmacy 

 will be acquired, and with more enthusi- 

 asm will he carry on his daily work. 

 As professor of history of pharmacy 

 in one of our colleges, the writer had 

 occasion to collect many data, to chron- 

 icle many events, and to compile many 

 biographies of men who have greatlv 

 helped in the evolution of pharmacy, 

 men to whom pharmacists should for- 

 ever be thankful. January 3d, 1916, 

 marks the centenary of the birth of one 

 of these men, who in my mind occupies 

 the highest rank among the "masters of 

 pharmacy.'' Dr. Hans Hermann Julius 

 Hager, or as he is generally and simply 

 called. Hermann Hager, was born in 

 Berlin on January 3d, 1816, the son of 

 an army physician and surgeon, Dr. 

 Johann Heinrich Hager. He passed his 

 maturity examination at the high school 

 in Brandenburg on the Havel, where his 

 father was statione<l as physician to a 

 regiment. On April ist, 1832. young 

 Hager entered the profession of phar- 

 macy in the Loewen-Apotheke (Lion 

 Pharmacy) at Salzwedel. Even as ap- 

 prentice he showed his literary al^ility 

 by writing several poems and a treatise 

 * Druggists Circular. 



on "Stoichiometry." Without going to 

 the university, Hager passed his board 

 examination in Berlin in 1841, with the 

 mark "very good." 



In 1843 he bought the Stadtapotheke 

 in Fraustadt, where he devoted seven- 

 teen of the best years of his life to pro- 

 fessional and literary pharmacy. Poor 

 and unknown, like Karl W i 1 h e 1 m 

 Scheele, and assisted only by an ap- 

 prentice, Hager labored long and lov- 

 ingly in the service of pharmacy and be- 

 came one of its "masters," if not the 

 "master." He sold his pharmacy in 

 i860 and moved to Berlin, the center of 

 German sciences, even at that time, so 

 as to devote himself to his literary work, 

 as the opportunities for original research 

 and writing were much better in the 

 capital of Prussia than in the country 

 village. 



On July 1st, 1859, Hager founded and 

 during twenty years edited the Phar- 

 maceutische Centralhalle, a weekly jour- 

 nal devoted to the scientific and commer- 

 cial interests of pharmacy, which is still 

 one of the leading pharmaceutical jour- 

 nels in the world. In i860 he estab- 

 lished the Pharmaceutische Kalender. 

 which he published annually during 

 nineteen editions. This calendar and 

 note-book is still extensively used by 

 German pharmacists. 



From 1871 to 1881 Hager lived in his 

 country home, "Pulvermuehle" (Powder 



