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no complete lines. The result is that this 

 business of his is being gradually under- 

 mined by the special stores, the depart- 

 ment stores and the chain stores, the 

 giant druggists, who, with their un- 

 limited capital, with their tremendous 

 purchasing power and their up-to-date 

 business methods, are monopolizing com- 

 mercial pharmacy and threatening the 

 very existence of the small druggists. 

 This is especially true in our large cities. 



The problem we are today confronted 

 with is : What can be offered to the 

 practical pharmacist in lieu of the un- 

 profitable side lines? As an elevating 

 professional and lucrative succedaneum I 

 beg to suggest clinical laboratory work, 

 a field closely related to the pharmacist's 

 profession, a scientific side line that 

 brings both additional revenue and con- 

 siderable prestige. 



I shall endeavor briefly to illustrate 

 that there is a demand for the work and 

 that the pharmacist is both fit and 

 equipped to perform such work. 



The modem practitioner of medicine, 

 unlike his predecessor, in order to make 

 a diagnosis is not satisfied merely with 

 the feeling of his patient's pulse and look- 

 ing at his tongue. He has now other 

 means for the purpose of making a cor- 

 rect diagnosis aside from the physical 

 examination and the symptoms of the 

 patient, and that is by examining his vital 

 fluids, his excretions and secretions. A 

 physician today can no more practice 

 medicine successfully and properly diag- 

 nose diseases without first applying 

 clinical tests than a surgeon can operate 

 without the necessary instruments. At 

 present the physician makes part of the 

 examination himself and sends part of 

 the work to the commercial laboratory, 

 if there happens to be any in his vicinity. 



The time is not far distant when the 

 physician who has neither the time nor 

 the facilities and proper technique to do 

 the work him/self, will be but too glad to 

 place it in the hands of one who is com- 

 petent to perform it, and that one is 

 logically nobody else but the pharmacist. 



We must not lose sight of the fact that 

 originally the physician was his own dis- 

 penser. Both medicine and pharmacy 

 belonged, so to speak, to one person, 

 until the two subjects, were gradually 

 divided into distinctly separate profes- 

 sions. The right and title to diagnose 

 and treat diseases belongs to the physi- 

 cian, and the pharmacist has indisputable 

 claims on the preparing and dispensing 

 of the medicines prescribed by the for- 

 mer. These claims on the part of the 

 pharmacist should be extended further, 

 so as to embrace the new field of clinical 

 and bacteriological work, for, if in order 

 to do justice to his patient, the physician 

 had to relegate the dispensing of medi- 

 cine to the pharmacist, he will certainly, 

 for the same reasons, have to turn over 

 his clinical work to the one who can per- 

 form it better than himself. The phar- 

 macist has been the helpmate of the phy- 

 sician as his dispenser, now let him be- 

 come also his clinical laboratory chemist 

 and be as ready to engage in that line of 

 work as he is now equipped to do pre- 

 scription work. 



It is evident that this work comes 

 within the domain of practical pharmacy, 

 for if it were foreign to the calling of 

 the pharmacist, a chapter on diagnostic 

 reagents should have no place in the 

 pharmacopoeia. These reagents were not 

 put there by the revision committee as 

 an ornaniient, but for the use of the 

 pharmacist, who by virtue of his close 

 association with the physician and his 



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