1901] | MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. - 1 
this applies to the department of botany and its various 
branches, as vegetable materia-medica, vegetable pharm- 
acography and powdered vegetable drugs. The leaders 
in pharmaceutical education admit that a good compound 
microscope is a part of the necessary equipment of the 
intelligent, competent, practicing pharmacist. It is, there- 
fore, much to be regretted that there are a number of so- 
called colleges of pharmacy from which students are 
graduated, who have never used or even seen a compound 
microscope. 
Such graduates are wholly unfit for the duties of a mod- 
ern pharmacist, because it is only through the intelligent 
use of this iustrument that he is enabled to vouch for the 
purity of most of the vegetable drugs and many other 
substances used in his practice. The advanced workers in 
Pharmaceutical Vegetable Histology abroad, as well as 
in this country, have employed the microscope for a num- 
ber of years. A few eminent specialists of Germany and 
France have studied the histology of medicinal plants 
since 1825. The earlier German investigators also de- 
voted much of their attention to the microscopical exam- 
ination of foods and spices, textile fabrics and various 
other commercial! products. Some of this work was really 
herculean, and it would be highly interesting to enter into 
a fuller discussion, but space will not permit. According 
to Pocklington, the use of the compound microscope in 
English pharmacy, dates from 1850, when Dr. Hassell 
laid before the Botanical Society of London, a paper on 
the histology of coffee and its adulterants. The micro- 
scope was introduced into American pharmacy a few years 
later. In England, as well as in the United States, the 
use of the compound microscope in pharmaceutical prac- 
tice progressed very slowly, until about 1880 or a few - 
years later, in spite of the earnest recommendation of a few 
leading teachers and investigators. Since 1880, some very 
energetic work has been done in America. Many of the 
