CHAPTER XVIII 



SUGGESTIONS ON A MICROANALYTICAL AND BACTERIOLO- 

 GICAL LABORATORY FOR THE PHARMACIST 



i. The Qualifications of the Analyst 



What type and grade of scientific or analytical work should the 

 properly trained pharmacist be prepared to do? What should his special 

 training and qualifications be in order that he may do special work? 

 These questions have been discussed within recent years by the leading 

 pharmacists in the United States. It is not within the province of a work 

 of this kind to discuss pharmaceutical education, nevertheless the following 

 suggestions are in place. 



1. The pharmacist who has had a thorough training in an adequately 

 equipped college, assuming that he has mental aptitude, should be pre- 

 pared to do special work along the following lines. 



(a) Chemistry and toxicology. 



(6) Pharmacy and pharmaceutical manufacture. 



(c) Pharmacognosy and microanalysis. 



(d) Bacteriology. 



2. For some time to come the specialists in pharmacy will tend to 

 work in more than one branch; or rather, the special endeavor will be 

 developed through correlated branches of science. Thus the toxicologist 

 will advance through chemistry and pharmacology. The pharmacogno- 

 sist through botany and materia medica. The bacteriologist through 

 sanitary science and microanalysis. 



3. The present arrangement of courses in our leading colleges of 

 pharmacy is such that the following specialists will arise from the ranks 

 of the limited number of promising students. 



(a). Toxicologists, rather than chemists or pharmacologists. 



(b). Pharmacognosists, rather than botanists or specialists in materia 

 medica. 



(c.) Microanalysts, rather than bacteriologists or sanitary officers. 



It is true that a number of specialists employed in state and munici- 

 pal laboratories and in pharmaceutical laboratories (pharmaceutical 

 manufacture) have arisen from the ranks of the students of pharmacy, and 

 pharmaceutical chemistry, but it is nevertheless a fact that the college 

 curriculum is such as to train and qualify especially along the lines in- 

 dicated. Our authoritative pharmacologists are without exception from 



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