130 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



cognosy the advantages offered to the 

 student are carried to a point never be- 

 fore attempted in any similar institution. 

 One hour and a half weekly for thirty 

 weeks is devoted to the practical study 

 of the gross and microscopical characters 

 of some 250 drugs of vegetable and ani- 

 mal origin, each student having in hand 

 an ample and typical speciment of each 

 drug studied and being permitted to re- 

 tain the same for the formation of a per- 

 manent materia medica cabinet, of the 

 utmost value to him for purposes of ref- 

 erence and comparison in after years. 



The senior work in pharmacy is mere- 

 ly a continuation of that of the junior 

 year, in which, however, new examina- 

 tions and operations are introduced, de- 

 signed to bring into practice the ad- 

 vanced knowledge since gained by the 

 student in chemistry and materia med- 

 ica. 



The final examination to which the 

 students are subjected is of a searching 

 character and the inflexible adherence to 

 principle elsewhere manifested by the 

 college authorities is exercised in the 

 determination of the fitness of all candi- 

 dates who receive the diploma and the 

 degree of Graduate in Pharmacy. The 

 conspicuous excess in the percentage of 

 successful candidates over that which 

 exists in other similar institutions has 

 been frequently pointed to by those un- 

 familiar with the nature of the work as 

 an indication of laxity in requirement. 

 The error is entirely natural and to be 

 expected, but yet it is completely an 

 error. Those who are well informed 

 upon the subject understand that its ex- 

 planation is to be found in the very per- 

 fect utilization of instruction hours in 

 the accomplishment of practical results. 



Our remaining remarks will be de- 

 voted to considering the changing con- 

 ditions in the pharmaceutical profession 

 and the character of the corresponding 



changes in the nature of the advanced 

 pharmaceutical instruction which must 

 be made to meet them. 



The history of pharmacy shows it to 

 have been an offshoot from medicine. It 

 originated because the broadening of the 

 field of medical practice developed duties 

 which could be perfectly performed only 

 through two separate classes of service, 

 and at the same time a deeper insight 

 into the nature of medical science sug- 

 gested investigations which could be 

 satisfactorily pursued only by students 

 free from the demands upon time and 

 attention inseparable from such practice. 

 The same considerations have deter- 

 mined the subsequent development of 

 pharmaceutical practice, and it is from 

 their study that we must determine the 

 elements of its future growth. 



When the physician's duties were lim- 

 ited to the crudest forms of prophylaxis, 

 to diagnosis by the unaided senses or by 

 means of the simplest instruments and to 

 treatment by the unchanged, or slightly 

 changed, products of nature, and 

 by a surgery more or less bar- 

 barous, the assistance rendered by the 

 pharmacist was correspondingly re- 

 stricted and simple. But the value 

 of his assistance once acknowledged, 

 it was inevitable that his duties should 

 increase, pari passu with the addition of 

 new lines of work to the physician's prac- 

 tice. The day is already far gone when 

 the duties of a pharmacist were confined 

 to adapting in his work the results of ex- 

 perience and research on the part of the 

 physician. Long ago was assigned to 

 him the chief task of determining and 

 reporting to the medical profession upon 

 the composition and nature of the mate- 

 ria medica, of isolating its active portions, 

 of indicating desirable and undesirable 

 combinations, of regulating preparations, 

 and even of discovering and suggesting 

 additions. So faithfully and so energeti- 



