Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
March,  1904. 
A  Symposium. 
botany.  Pharmacognosy  is  in  my  estimation  synonymous  with 
pharmacology,  although  many  teachers  use  it  in  a  more  restricted 
sense  as  applying  to  a  description  of  drugs,  animal  and  vegetable. 
Organic  materia  medica  is  by  some  teachers  given  the  same  applica- 
tion or  meaning  as  pharmacognosy. 
Pharmacography,  which  simply  means  a  description  of  drugs,  is, 
in  my  opinion,  especially  applicable  to  that  course  of  instruction 
treating  of  the  morphology  (crude  or  gross  morphology  and  his- 
tology), history,  origin,  habitat,  commerce,  constituents,  collecting, 
drying,  garbling,  curing  and  powdering  of  crude  drugs ;  cultivation 
of  drug-yielding  plants,  etc.  This  course  must  of  necessity  be  dis- 
tinct from  pharmacy,  chemistry,  and  materia  medica.  I  have  ap- 
plied the  term  pharmacodynamics  to  that  course  which  treats  of 
drug  action  based  on  laboratory  tests  or  experiments  on  animals. 
Colleges  of  medicine  usually  designate  such  a  laboratory  course  as 
pharmacology,  it  seems  to  me  erroneously  for  reasons  given  above. 
The  following  tabulation  will  perhaps  aid  in  making  clear  the 
relationship  and  relative  importance  of  the  terms  referred  to  in  the 
above.  I  would  suggest  discontinuing  the  use  of  the  term  pharma- 
cognosy entirely,  because  of  the  indefinite  way  in  which  it  is 
applied. 
I.  Pharmacology. 
(1)  Pharmacy  (including  a  course  in  dispensing). 
(2)  Pharmacography  (vegetable  and  animal). 
(3)  Materia  medica  (general). 
(4)  Pharmacodynamics  (principally  toxicology). 
II.  Chemistry  (general  and  pharmaceutical). 
III.  Botany  (general  and  pharmaceutical). 
It  is  of  course  understood  that  vegetable  pharmocography  is  spe- 
cial botany. 
In  conclusion  I  would  express  the  hope  that  the  conference  of 
teaching  faculties  may  take  this  matter  up  and  decide  upon  a 
uniform  nomenclature  to  be  used  by  colleges  of  pharmacy. 
Yours  very  truly,  Albert  Schneider. 
San  Francisco,  Cat,.  ,  January  25,  1904. 
Dr.  Henry  Kraemer,  Editor  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy. 
Dear  Sir:  In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  15th  inst.,  I  would  say 
that  there  is  much  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  terms  mentioned, 
