iHE ALU MINI JOURNAL. 



145 



of it lying carelessly on her toilette with 

 her smelling bottles. She alone knows 

 the vial and can distinguish it. Even 

 the waiting woman, who is her con- 

 fidant, is not in the secret, and takes the 

 vial for distilled water used for mixing 

 with her perfumes." 



THE ADVANTAGES WHICH NEW YORK 

 CITY, AS A SCIENTIFIC AND PHAR= 

 MACEUTICAL CENTRE, OFFERS TO 

 STUDENTS OF PHARHACY. 



By H. H. RUSBY. 



In scrutinizing the inducements offered 

 by the various pharmacy schools through 

 the annual prospectus, the intending 

 student often fails to investigate or to 

 consider the conditions presented by the 

 respective locations, independently of the 

 provision of the curriculum. In the case 

 of students seeking a purely scientific or 

 classical education, some of these ad- 

 vantages may safely or often even profit- 

 ably be ignored, as the desired tendency 

 is rather toward abstraction from ordin- 

 ary affairs, and to this, partial isolation is 

 conducive. To those seeking a technical 

 education and training, upon the other 

 hand, the opportunity of seeing applied 

 in practice upon a wide scale the princi- 

 ples and processes upon which their 

 future business is to be based, and of 

 having presented before them a wide 

 field of information and choice as to the 

 special direction which they shall select 

 for the exercise of their profession or 

 business, are advantages upon which 

 their future success is often even more 

 directly dependent than upon their train- 

 ing within the school. The advantages 

 of this class which are afforded to 

 students of pharmacy resident in New 

 York City, and particularly to advanced 

 students, are so extensive that it has 

 seemed desirable to present a synopsis of 



them to the readers of The Alumni 

 Journal. 



They really constitute two distinct 

 classes, the first pertaining to the con- 

 duct of the business and profession of 

 pharmacy, the second relating to the op- 

 portunities for obtaining special scientific 

 instruction, free of charge and outside of 

 the College of Pharmacy, in the branches 

 more or less directly connected with 

 pharmaceutical study. 



The existence within one hour's ride 

 of the New York City Hall, of about four 

 millions of people, supplied by more 

 than two thousand retail pharmacies, in- 

 dicates not only great opportunities for 

 the selection of a business location and 

 for acquiring a knowledge of professional 

 conditions, but also a vast investment of 

 local capital and labor required to supply 

 such pharmaceutical demands. But the 

 supplying of this local demand constitutes 

 after all only a portion of the business in 

 which our capital and labor are employed. 

 The heaviest service which they render is 

 in the employment of this city as a dis- 

 tributing centre to a large part of the 

 United States and to many other coun- 

 tries. Most of the material so distributed 

 being of foreign production, there is in- 

 volved an extensive import trade, the 

 importation of crude drugs into the port 

 of New York greatly exceeding that of 

 all the remainder of the United States 

 combined, and employing wholly or in 

 great part not less than fifty firms of im- 

 porters and half as many drug brokers. 

 A temporary position in one of these es- 

 tablishments during attendance at col- 

 lege, even in a subordinate capacity, 

 affords a very favorable opportunity for 

 acquiring a practical acquaintance with 

 the material handled, of inestimable 

 value in supplementing the college 

 course in pharmicognosy, and also of 

 studying a branch of commerce calculat- 

 ed to constitute a good, broad foundatioo 



