192 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[September 7, 1872. 
whether he had been properly instructed. The very 
way he would hold the scales would he sufficient for me. 
If you have put a pair of scales into a tyro’s hands, you 
have noticed that he laid hold of the scales in the wrong 
place, and instead of weighing accurately he could not 
weigh a drachm within five or six grains, because he would 
destroy the balance of the scales by holding the top of 
it; and before such a young man had put the first part of 
the ingredients into the mortar I should say, “You know 
nothing about it.” Therefore, whether there are two 
schools or a dozen, if they set to work in a legitimate 
way to teach young men in their neighbourhood, I think 
they will have a claim on the Pharmaceutical Society. 
I think Mr. Reynold’s scheme is perfectly right. I 
never understood him to say for a moment that he w'ould 
send down to such and such a place a certain sum of 
money to begin a school. They must begin for them¬ 
selves legitimately and fairly, and then we will help them. 
I was one that took part in the committee that formed 
that scheme, and I don’t think that it has failed at all. 
The difficulty was this—that in a large town where we 
had a lot of pupils, we did not want exactly the same that 
a small town did. It was wanted in a different manner, 
and we treated each one on its own individual merits. 
Now, that will answer very well, but the cry has been 
that we want something that will apply universally; and 
that is where Mr. Schacht’s scheme answers; or if it 
does not answer—if it is impracticable—it is because the 
people have not done sufficient to help themselves. I 
heard it asked this morning, “ What is a village to do 
which has not more than five pupils in it?” Well, I 
say that young men ought not to go there to learn their 
business. They go with a full knowledge of the oppor¬ 
tunities which the place affords; therefore, I do not see 
that we should have any blame for it. I, for one, will 
take part in making this a profession really of some value, 
and not simply a money-making business. Of course 
we must have one as well as the other ; but still there is 
no reason at all why we should not have as high a status 
.as we possibly can. . There is one thing which I would 
very strenuously insist upon, and that is a proof that the 
young man who comes has had experience in the busi¬ 
ness. Our Transatlantic friends will tell us that that is a 
sine qua non with them. 
Professor Markoe, of Boston, U.S., said : Mr. Presi¬ 
dent, and gentlemen of the British Pharmaceutical Con¬ 
ference,—I have come altogether unprepared to speak 
before you, and all that 1 can say with regard to the 
American system, is simply to give you a detail of the 
practical working of the Massachusetts College of 
Pharmacy, which I will take as a type of the rest of the 
American Colleges of Pharmacy, inasmuch as all the 
Colleges of Pharmacy in the United States have adopted 
the same standard. There is usually one College in each 
of the States where pharmacists have sufficient influence 
to start a college. The various pharmaceutical colleges 
have generally three chairs—Chemistry, Materia Medica 
«rnd 1 harmacy, and Botany. The lectures are almost 
always in the evening. Lectures in the day time have 
sometimes been tried, but, in general, that time has not 
been suited to the American system of doing business. 
There is no preliminary examination required in either 
©1 the schools, but there is one basis upon which all the 
American colleges are in union, namely, in exactin°' an 
apprenticeship of at least four years to some practical 
pharmacist. Mere service in a wholesale store will be 
ol no avail at all. It makes no difference how long or 
how many lectures a student may attend, for, if he can¬ 
not biing to the Examining Board his certificate, signed 
by some respectable pharmacist, he will not be admitted 
to the examinations. A practice has prevailed also which 
ha» acted somewhat as your Minor examination if I 
may term it so, that at the end of the lectures each of 
the pi ofessors submits his class to an examination on the 
subjects treated in the course of lectures. This examina¬ 
tion is now pretty uniformly a written examination, and 
consists of about fifty questions, of course the character 
of the questions being unknown until the evening of the 
examination. The whole class is examined in each of 
the departments, and in our own school we require 66 
per cent, of correct answers in each of the professorial ex¬ 
aminations. Those young men who have passed this 
examination successfully, are then required to deposit 
with the Dean of the Faculty a certificate from their re¬ 
spective employers certifying that they had served the 
proper amount of apprenticeship. They are also requited 
to produce a thesis, or dissertation, upon some subject if 
pharmacy, materia medica, or some related subject. This 
must be written neatly ; and if the thesis gives evidence 
of insufficient English education, even if the other ex¬ 
aminations are satisfactory, we reject the candidate. So 
much for the preliminary or professors’ examinations, as 
we term them. The young man then, after having 
brought a written certificate, goes before the directors of 
the College of Pharmacy. He goes before the Committee 
of Trustees in the Massachusetts College, and in the 
Philadelphia College they have an Examining Board 
which takes the place of the other bodies. He is then 
subjected to an examination, part of which is written 
and part oral, and he is required to recognize specimens 
of pharmaceutical substances, and also of materia medica ; 
but what we insist upon is that he shall have had four 
years behind the counter. In addition to that the student 
must attend the lectures. We generally keep a check 
list. One great advantage that we derive from the pro¬ 
fessors’ examinations is that we sift out all the weak men, 
so that it is very rarely that one who has passed the pro¬ 
fessors’ examinations "fails to pass the other; but even 
then some of the weakest ones are sifted out at the 
second examination. There were at the completion of 
our last session last spring eight young men who passed 
the junior, or professors’ examination, and, out of that 
number, two were rejected at the last examination. A 
word or two with respect to pharmaceutical education. The 
subject of pharmaceutical education in the States I 
think has taken a very promising turn indeed. We 
have now in full operation a college of pharmacy in the 
city of Philadelphia, at which last year something like 
250 pupils attended, and the number is likely to in¬ 
crease. In the Maryland College of Pharmacy they have 
75 pupils. At Chicago the session would have started with 
quite a full class, had not the unfortunate disaster there 
broke up the school for a time, but, with the wonderful 
enterprise of that city, the managers have got organized 
again, and they already announce a course for next ses¬ 
sion. The New York College of Pharmacy has for 
many years been very inefficient, having very small 
classes of from 25 to 50, but after the passing of the 
Irving Act, which resulted from the Tammany Ring*, 
by which a most unjust measure was put upon the New 
T ork pharmacists, they united and succeeded in defeat- 
ing it, and now they have got a very excellent Act. 
In Philadelphia the Pennsylvania legislature passed an 
Act which is also satisfactory, and the practical execution 
of that Act is in the hands of the College of Pharmacy. 
In Massachusetts the legislature has endeavoured to 
pass two Acts, and both have been lost by a small 
majority, but there is every reason to hope that 
next year a Pharmacy Act will be passed in Massa¬ 
chusetts. Similar Acts have been passed at Ohio and 
Illinois. Our Acts are all remarkable for their brevity. 
They are not so complicated as the English Pharmacy 
Act. It would be impossible to pass anything so long 
as that in the States, and we find that we practically 
gain all the good, although we have very much shorter 
Acts. Now the first Pharmacy Act of any value at all 
was for the city of Baltimore, which was passed by the 
Maryland legislature. The circumstances were these : 
an effort was made to pass an Act for the entire State 
of Maryland, but the petition asking for it was mainly 
signed by the city of Baltimore, and it was lost. Pro¬ 
fiting by that experience, the Baltimore pharmacists got 
