THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
OCTOBER,  1902. 
THE  FATHER  OF  AMERICAN  PHARMACY.1 
WILLIAM  PROCTER,  JR.;    BORN,  BALTIMORE,  MD.,  MAY  3,   1817;  DIED, 
PHILADELPHIA,  PA.,  FEBRUARY  9,    1 874. 
By  Albert  B.  Ebsrt,  Ph.M. 
To  compose  a  eulogy  of  the  life  and  work  of  Professor  Procter  is 
a  pleasure  to  which  an  old-time  pharmacist  should  bring  his  best 
thought.  But  this  has  already  been  done  by  abler  minds  than  mine. 
It  may  not,  however,  be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  add  another 
tribute  to  his  memory  as  a  teacher,  a  writer  and  as  the  founder  and 
leading  spirit  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  With 
but  a  limited  education,  yet  by  hard  and  unremitting  labor  and 
study  he  placed  himself  in  the  front  rank  of  American  scholars.  He 
built  his  life,  line  upon  line,  by  his  own  unaided  efforts.  He  was  a  self- 
made  man  in  the  best  sense,  for  his  own  early  struggles  had  taught 
him  to  put  himself  in  another's  place,  and  to  give  the  help  he  in 
former  years  would  have  been  glad  to  receive.  From  the  day  of 
his  graduation  from  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  in  1837 
his  life  seemed  to  be  devoted  wholly  to  the  interests  of  the  profes- 
sion. In  1840  he  became  a  member  of  the  college  from  which  he 
graduated,  and  from  that  time  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  one  of 
its  most  distinguished  sons.  When  he  became  a  professor  in  the 
college  he  founded  the  course  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  phar- 
macy, which,  prior  to  its  introduction  by  him,  had  not  been  prac- 
tically applied.    His  contributions  to  the  literature  of  pharmacy 
1  Read  at  the  Special  Jubilee  Session  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Asso- 
•    ciation,  September  11,  1902. 
(461) 
