May 17, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
917 
by Oenro-^ W T?4%-rT«,y; liere he continued business until 
-1350. During this period he contributed several papers 
to the Journal, and in 1848, in connection with his 
assistant, W. W. D. Livermore, a paper on “Collodion,” 
the first notice of that preparation occurring in the Journal, 
the discoverers at Boston not having published their 
process. During the same period he married Margaret, 
daughter of Uriah Hunt, of Philadelphia, who continued 
his closest friend and companion until her death, a few 
months before his own. 
In the autumn of 1849 he gave his first course of in¬ 
struction in Practical Pharmacy to 14 students. 
Soon after this time he removed and entered into 
business with his brother Dillwyn, his “Practical School” 
being better accommodated and gradually increasing in 
importance, was addressed to pharmaceutists as well as 
to medical students. In furtherance of his school he 
determined about this time to take a course of practical 
instruction in analysis in the laboratory of Professor 
Booth, and afterwards a medical course in the University 
of Pennsylvania. 
Feeling the need of a text-book for his class, he decided 
to write a book addressed to medical and pharmaceutical 
students, and in the year 1855 he published the first 
edition of his “ Introduction to Practical Pharmacy.” 
In 1857 his lecture on “ Summer Medical Teaching in 
Philadelphia,” after speaking of his earlier efforts in es¬ 
tablishing his “School,” he says : “ Twenty-three courses 
of lectures and practical exercises have since 1849 been 
given to an aggregate of 299 medical students, drawn 
from nearly every State in the Union, and from British 
America. After near eight years’ experience as teacher 
of this speciality, I need offer no apology for giving some 
general conclusions I have arrived at in regard to its 
utility as a branch of medical education, and the best 
means of imparting it.” Again he says: “In claiming 
the position of a pioneer in this sort of teaching [in the 
U.S.], I do so with the confident belief that the time is 
approaching when its importance will be fully recognized, 
and when the education of the physician will be universally 
regarded as incomplete unless he has enjoyed the advan¬ 
tages of a more or less thoroughly practical teaching in 
pharmacy.” 
These extracts will show that Edward Parrish had made 
considerable advance as a teacher in imparting instruction 
to medical students before subsequently entering our 
faculty, and had carried on his school with an enthusiastic 
belief in its usefulness and efficiency. 
The pharmaceutical meetings of the College (an offshoot 
from the interest awakened by the Pharmacopoeia Com¬ 
mittee of Revision of 1840) were frequently attended by 
Edward Parrish after he graduated; and, although his 
written communications to their proceedings were not 
numerous, he often gave interest to them by his practical 
remarks and by the exhibition of attractive objects. Being 
a ready speaker, he delighted on these occasions to bring 
forward subjects for discussion, and often without prepa¬ 
ration added greatly to their interest. His genial manners, 
and earnest desire to render these meetings open to all 
who would come —members, students, or strangers—as¬ 
sisted in prolonging their existence after they decreased in 
importance, from the cessation in great measure for several 
years of the experimental essays, which in the begin¬ 
ning had given character and importance to their trans¬ 
actions. 
Edward Parrish early determined to pursue a scientific 
career, aspired to a position in the schools, and was deeply 
impressed with a belief in his ability to teach. When the 
chair of Materia Medica was vacated in 1850 by the re¬ 
tirement of Dr. Carson, he was a candidate for the vacancy, 
but the traditional influence of the idea that that chair 
was best filled by a physician, led to the election of Dr. 
R. P. Thomas. In the Spring of 1864, however, on the 
death of Dr. Thomas, he was elected to fill the vacancy, 
as Professor of Materia Medica, and continued in that 
office till 1867, when he exchanged chairs with Professor 
Maisch, and, assuming the duties of the Professorship o 
Practical Pharmacy, more in accordance with his inchna 
tion and habits, continued until his decease to lecture 
annually to increasingly large classes. 
Professor Parrish was always popular with the students; 
his free and open manner, the interest he took in the class 
individually and collectively, and, above all, his good 
delivery as a speaker, rendered him a favourite and gave 
him influence. For several years prior to his death other 
engagements had trenched greatly on the time required 
by his professorial duties, but in 1871 he was. relieved from 
these, and had his life been spared there is no doubt that 
his career would have been increasingly useful as a teacher 
of practical pharmacy. 
Edward Parrish was elected a member of the Phila¬ 
delphia College in 1843, became a member of the Board 
of Trustees in March, 1845, and was elected to the 
Secretaryship of the College in 1854, and continuing that 
office until he entered the Faculty, in 1864. In 1847 he 
was one of a committee of fifteen members to report on 
the Phannacopoeia previous to the convention of 1850, and 
in 1859 and 1869 he acted on similar committees previous 
to the conventions of 1860 and 1870. He was also a 
delegate to the Pharmacopoeia Convention of 1860 for 
Revising the Pharmacopoeia, and in 1869 was one of three 
delegates appointed by our College to the International 
Pharmaceutical Congress of Paris, but was not able to 
to attend. In 1850 he was elected a member of the Pub¬ 
lishing Committee of the College, and continued in it 
until 1870. He contributed frequently to the Journal 
during this period, and to the Druggists' Circular , N. Y. 
Professor Parrish became a member of the American 
Pharmaceutical Association at its first meeting in Phila¬ 
delphia, in 1852, was elected Recording Secretary at the 
Boston meeting, in 1853, First "Vice-President in 1866, 
and President of the Association at the meeting of 1868. 
He acted on many of its committees, assisted in the re¬ 
visions of the Constitution and other labour, and, when 
present, always took an active part in the discussions. 
A number of papers and reports, scattered over the twenty 
volumes of Proceedings, mark the interest he manifested 
in this way in the advancement of pharmacy. 
His ready pen was always at command to bring together 
in order the results of reflection and inquiry, whether 
these related to the ethics of pharmacy, the bye-laws of 
the Association, or the advantages of education, general 
or special. Moreover, though not himself possessed of an 
inventive genius, he delighted in new inventions or im¬ 
provements in pharmacy, and was always ready to en¬ 
courage their authors, and to be the means of spreading 
a knowledge of them by tongue or pen. 
In 1858 Professor Parrish made a hurried trip to 
Europe, but limited his travels to England and Scotland, 
with a brief tour to Paris, Strasburg, and the Rhine, 
availing himself of the opportunity to make acquaintance 
with pharmaceutists and their institutions. In a series of 
letters published in 1859, in the American Journal of 
Pharmacy , he gave some of the results of this voyage. 
About this period he published a little book entitled 
“ The Phantom Bouquet,” which treated of the art of ske¬ 
letonizing leaves and other parts of plants. 
In the year 1864 the project of establishing a collegiate 
institution under the direction of the Society of Friends, 
which had long been entertained by some of its members, 
culminated in obtaining the Act of incorporation of 
Swarthmore College, and the purchase of a farm site of 
93 acres in Delaware Co., Pa. Deeply impressed with 
the importance of more thoroughness in education and 
with the newer views in regard to the manner and means 
of educating the youth of both sexes, he gave the subject 
deep attention, and, entering the field in 1862, became 
one of the most successful pioneers in the work of advo¬ 
cating the claims of Swarthmore to those who held the 
means for its completion ; serving as Secretary to the 
Board of Managers from December, 1864, until the com¬ 
pletion of the building in 1868, when he was officially de- 
