April 15, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
821 
PHARMACY IN PRUSSIA. 
BY ERNEST J. T. AGNEW. 
German unification being likely to assimilate all 
brandies of technical education, a description of 
pharmacy in Prussia, with a few notes on its varia¬ 
tions in the other States of the great German Empire, 
will, we trust, be found acceptable and interesting. A 
superior medical Council is held at Berlin, and pro¬ 
vincial councils ( Reyierunys-ineclicinal-rath ) in the 
chief towns of eacli province. Generally there is no 
special school or college of pharmacy; but students, 
as in other professions, are expected to follow the 
usual university courses, before which they must 
have undergone four years’ apprenticeship, and must 
have been assistants to chemists for three j r ears 
more before passing the final examination. An 
apprentice must be over fourteen years of age, and 
must pass a stiff examination by the Physicus of the 
district in Latin, German, and the elementary phy¬ 
sical and natural sciences. On receiving his exami¬ 
nation certificate he enters the service of an apothe¬ 
cary, who is bound to instruct him, and even to keep 
an herbarium of the indigenous medicinal plants for 
his benefit. How different to the colour-grinding and 
alum-powdering instruction on which most English 
apprentices have to base their future pharmaceu¬ 
tical education ! On emerging from his apprentice¬ 
ship, he passes before the Medical Commission, who 
examine him in chemistry, pharmacy, etc. This as¬ 
sistants’ examination is certainly much more search¬ 
ing than the “major” of London. The final ordeal 
takes place when the student has reached the age of 
twenty-five, and is held by a special Board at the 
University. There are eight separate examinations, 
which are as follows :— 
1. Written : Mineralogy, Botany and Toxicology. 
2. To prepare a certain number of galenical pre¬ 
parations in the laboratory. 
3. To prepare three chemical preparations used in 
pharmacy. 
4. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of a 
mixture of salts. 
5. The analysis of some mixture containing one 
or more poisons. 
6. The physiological examination of drugs and 
medicinal plants. 
7. An essay on some chemical subject, to which 
great importance is attached. The student is al¬ 
lowed every facility for references (which he has to 
name), and the time is unlimited. These essays are 
often complete monographs, and are preceded by a 
curriculum vita of the student. 
The eighth is a viva voce and public interrogation 
on all pharmaceutical studies and a discussion on 
the essays. This last examination is passed before 
the whole Board, and entails many important and im¬ 
posing ceremonies. In some parts of Germany there 
are second-class pharmacists, who pass their exami¬ 
nations before local boards in the chief provincial 
towns ; but their privileges are few r , and they can only 
establish themselves in small country towns or vil¬ 
lages. It is easy to see that the eminent position oc¬ 
cupied by German chemists is due to their extensive 
knowledge and the privileges accorded to them hi con¬ 
sequence. The Government alone authorizes the 
establishment of new pharmacies; but such is the 
degree of opposition on the part of those already in 
business, that but very few are annually established, 
although the population of the large towns is rapidly 
Third Series, No. 42. 
increasing.- Berlin, with a population of 700,000, 
has 43 pharmacies, Pestli only 14. In Russia, by some 
most extraordinary anomaly, German apothecaries 
alone are permitted to practise, to the exclusion even 
of natives, unless they have been educated in a Ger¬ 
man university and possess the German diploma. 
Thus, in St. Petersburg there are 45 pharmacies 
to 532,000 inhabitants; in Moscow, 30 to 380,000, 
or over 12,000 persons to support a single druggist. 
One large shop in the former place keeps over forty 
assistants, and as the business consists only in dis¬ 
pensing, enormous fortunes are realized. The Ger¬ 
man Pharmacopoeia has long been considered official 
in Russia; but a new Russian Pharmacopoeia is 
about to be, if not already, issued. In Germany, as 
in all other countries where the number of druggists 
is limited, the medical commissioners fix a tariff of 
prices which is revised every year. At the death of 
a pharmacist, his widow may carry on the business 
until her children, should she have any, have at¬ 
tained their majority, by employing a duly-qualified 
manager. Should it, however, be left to other heirs, 
it must be sold within a year. Before the druggist 
commences business, he must take the professional 
oath before the Kreis-physicus or the university 
authorities. 
A peculiarity of German pharmacists is the adop¬ 
tion of a sign. The number of Pelicans, Golden 
Eagles, etc. in Germany is only to be equalled by 
that in the Licensed Victuallers’ columns of the 
London Post-Office Directory. In general nothing 
is exposed in the windows, and the interior seems 
redolent with professional gravity. The principal 
pharmacies consist of two or more rooms; the first, 
a kind of -waiting-room for the public, who dare not 
penetrate into the sanctum where a number of silent 
and spectacled assistants dispense the prescriptions 
brought to them by a kind of shop-walker or “ pro¬ 
visor,” who returns them with medicines to the 
customers. The law compels them to write on each 
label the name of the medicine, that of the person 
for -whom it is intended, how to be taken, and the 
date of its preparation. Coloured labels are used 
for poisons and external remedies. The apothe¬ 
caries (as pharmacists are designated in Germany) 
prepare nearly all their chemicals and galenicals, for, 
owing to the restrictive measures in force and ensur¬ 
ing immense’ profits to the proprietors of drug-stores 
in large towns, nearly every pharmacy is provided 
with vast laboratories, containing every convenience 
for practice or research. Steam is commonty used 
for every purpose where heat is required, such as 
for drying, distilling and evaporating. Another 
reason conducing to raise the status of pharmacy in 
Germany is, that a great number of men possessing 
diplomas are unable to buy or obtain the necessary 
concession from the Government to establish tliem- 
* About thirty years ago, the apothecaries at Hamburg 
agreed that the number of their establishments, then more than 
40 to about 200,000 inhabitants, far exceeded the actual re¬ 
quirements of the public; in consequence of which many 
places scarcely enabled their owners to earn a scanty living. 
A society of the apothecaries of the town existed already for 
scientific and social meetings; and this society undertook to 
raise funds by annual subscriptions, and to gradually buy up 
the smaller establishments until the total number should be 
reduced to 24. This object has been carried out with such 
perseverance that at the present time there are less than 
30 pharmaceutical establishments, althouglqit ha3 been found 
necessary to establish several new one3 in recently built 
suburbs.— Ed. Pharr. Jouen. 
