THE NEW YORK JOURNAL OF PHARMACY 



therefore it is that the College of Phar- 

 macy, in preparing these young appren- 

 tices to be journeymen and master work- 

 men, has been performing an educa- 

 tional service not only to these students 

 but to the city and the state of which 

 they form a part. 



One could almost write the history of 

 civilization itself in terms of this calling 

 of the pharmacist. It is one of the oldest 

 occupations of man, preparing from nat- 

 ural objects the remedies that will check 

 and cure disease. If you were to go 

 back to the very beginning you would 

 find it wrapped up in mystery, in magic, 

 in superstition, in a thousand and one 

 theories which now seem to us unsatis- 

 factory, but which one day were a com- 

 fort and satisfaction to millions of men 

 When herbs were first used as the basis 

 of drugs, their curative power was sup- 

 posed to be due to some magical ele- 

 ment, perhaps some curious spirit which 

 resided in them ; and from that far-off day 

 to the present you could come down step 

 by step and trace in the history of phar- 

 macy which our College represents, the 

 development of man's understanding of 

 magic and mystery to scientific knowl- 

 edge and tested skill. And just as we 

 have put behind us forever the supersti- 

 tions that pharmacy has outgrown, so we 

 have set our faces squarely and soberly 

 toward the scientific method, the scien- 

 tific skill and the practical power that 

 the pharmacy of to-day represents. 



These young students are therefore 

 going out into no new occupation. They 

 are not about to enter upon a practical 

 career that sprung up yesterday. It has 

 a long, a curious and an honorable his- 

 tory. It is bound up at every point with 

 the history of the science of medicine 



and they take their places side by side 

 with the physician and the sanitarian 

 as a part of the great protecting agency 

 of the body politic, and they have 

 added to the study of remedies the study 

 of preventatives. We have now learned 

 the significance of the science of chemis- 

 try as an aid to the acts of everyday 

 life. The chemist in his laboratory has 

 revealed to us the constituents not alone 

 of our drugs, but of our foods. We have 

 learned much of the science of nutri- 

 tion ; we have learned much of the sci- 

 ence of body building, health making and 

 protecting the public from the ravages 

 of unnecessary and preventable disease. 

 At all of these points the student of 

 pharmacy joins hands with the student 

 of medicine and the student of sanitary 

 science and together the three make a 

 strong, powerful chain on which so much 

 of our comfort and happiness depends. 

 We have only lately learned — perhaps 

 within a generation — what a fundamental 

 matter health is — bodily health, mental 

 health, moral health, and we have only 

 just now learned how to spread a knowl- 

 edge of it abroad and carry its blessed 

 message of happiness and relief, to not 

 only thousands or tens of thousands, but 

 to millions of our citizens. That may be 

 said to be in a moral sense the calling 

 of the profession of pharmacy to the 

 ambitious young man or young woman 

 who enters upon it. It is not a mere 

 task, important as it is, of doing the 

 day's work bit by bit, but it is the larger 

 relationship of that task to the public 

 welfare, the larger relationship of that 

 task to medicine and to sanitary science, 

 the larger relationship of a task to the 

 service of the public welfare. 



And then there is one more word that 

 one must say to the young graduate of 



