THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



105 



THE COLLEGE OF PHARMACY OF THE 

 CITY OF NEW YORK. 



ISy Prof. H. H. RUSBY, M. D. 



{Continued from March issue.) 



Articles of the first class are chiefly 

 purchastd from the wholesale druggist. 

 Nevertheless, the pharmacist is not prop- 

 erly qualified to escape with readiness 

 the results of deception and error unless 

 he has a fair knowledge of the original 

 sources of supply. Indeed, in the case 

 of a number of articles the best results 

 require that the pharmacist should seek 

 his own crude materials in a state of 

 nature. Owing to the probability that 

 a number of other vegetable drugs are 

 more efficacious when used in the tresh 

 condition, a still further knowledge of 

 this character is likely to be required 

 from the pharmacist in the future. The 

 principal portion of his knowledge of 

 materia metica, however, will always be 

 restricted to the identification and esti- 

 mation of the crude materials as found in 

 the warehouses or sample rooms of the 

 wholesale druggist. In making such 

 selection he is obliged to depend in the 

 case of all but three of the 175 drugs of 

 this class, upon his knowledge of botany. 

 Great efforts have been made within the 

 past decade to discover chemical processes 

 by which botany might be relieved of 

 this responsibility, and at the same time 

 greater accurancy be attained in the 

 estimation of vegetable drugs. Up to 

 the pre-ent time, however, a success sat- 

 isfactory to the Pharmacopoeia Commit- 

 tee has been attained only in the case of 

 the three drugs, opium, cinchona and 

 mix vomica. For the entire remainder, 

 the application of botanical knowledge is 

 the only means at the command of the 

 pharmacist. Botany so applied consti- 

 tutes the chief portion of the branch of 

 study known as pharmacognosy. Its 

 requirements of the student are most ex- 

 acting. As there is no part of the plant 

 which does not in one or more cases enter 



into the materia medica, it follows that 

 the student's knowledge of vegetable 

 structure must extend to every one of the 

 plant organs. Up to the present time 

 the Pharmacopoeia has assumed that all 

 these drugs are to be selected by the 

 pharmacist in a crude condition, so that 

 it has required of him only a knowledge 

 of the organs in situ, or entire. The fact, 

 however, that fully seventy-five per cent, 

 of these products are purchased in a 

 powdered or more or less comminuted 

 condition particularly — and more especi- 

 ally from foreign sources, — that adultera- 

 tion is to be looked for, has called for an 

 increasing resort to the aid of the com- 

 pound microscope and an increasing re- 

 finement and complexity in the observa- 

 tions required. 



The proper preservation and storage of 

 his materials is a matter of no small con- 

 sequence as enabling the pharmacist to 

 prevent destruction or deterioration, ac- 

 cidental reactions between the article 

 stored and the occurrence of dangerous 

 errors. 



The same will apply to prescription 

 reading. Those who have not inquired 

 into the matter would find it difficult to 

 realize what almost insurmountable diffi- 

 culties are presented to the young phar- 

 macist in the reading of prescriptions. 

 Illegible writing, misplacing of symbols, 

 ambiguous abbreviations, incorrect and 

 misleading spelling, and bad Latin con- 

 stitute only a portion. A good knowl- 

 edge of Latin is, of course, one of the 

 requisites of the pharmaceutical educa- 

 tion ; but even this will not always en- 

 able the pharmacist to correctly interpret 

 instructions which themselves contain 

 errors. It is in point of fact simply im- 

 possible for a pharmacy course to com- 

 plete the student's knowlege of prescrip- 

 tion reading. Long experience in drug 

 store practice is the only means at com- 

 mand. 



