Address. 
101 
which may be inconsistent with his pecuniary interest. The 
great defect here is the want of precise rules for regulating 
the conduct of the pharmaceutical body ; a want which dis- 
courages those individuals who desire to adopt a high stand- 
ard of professional morals. This College, it must be con- 
ceded, has done much on the score of regulations; still, 
much remains to be done. Upon reviewing the points of 
conduct censured in this address, I think the apothecary can 
and ought to avoid them. The question, however, is a more 
difficult one, how far he may permit himself to be accessory 
to the arts of empiricism by vending secret and patent medi- 
cines. Here I wou'd advise, that, in accordance with truth 
and the lights of science, you should take every proper op- 
portunity, in conversation, of disabusing the minds of the un- 
wary, of the prepossession which they may entertain in fa- 
vour of these preparations; and that you should decline 
becoming agents for the proprietors, and avoid announcing 
them by show-bills in your stores, or by advertisements in 
the newspapers. But if your customers, or others, are ob- 
stinately bent on using these medicines, and wish to be sup- 
plied by you, it cannot be expected that you should decline 
furnishing them. If you were to do so, you would give 
offence, injure your business, and do no good to the appli- 
cant, as he would unquestionably provide himself elsewhere. 
But thus reluctantly to yield to the prejudices of the people 
from unavoidable necessity, is a very different thing from 
taking every possible method of increasing the consumption 
of these objectionable preparations. On this point, therefore, 
of pharmaceutical ethics, I conclude that the present state of 
your profession in this country will justify you in keeping 
secret and patent medicines to such an extent as may be ne- 
cessary to supply your customers, provided that you dis- 
courage their sale as much as lies in your power 
With regard to certain patent medicines, (so called,) the 
composition of which is regulated by standard receipts, I 
have only to remark, that some of them are valuable phar- 
maceutical combinations ; and the objection lies to them, for 
the most part, on account of their activity, which makes 
