41 6  Revision  of  Dispensing  Pharmacies,  {^pfemberjm1" 
tions;  but  it  is  folly  to  assert  that  it  is  possible  to  institute  a  certain 
line  of  work  and  to  constantly  have  at  hand  men  who  are  experts  in 
that  particular  field  for  the  asking. 
If  we,  in  this  country,  desire  to  make  rational  progress  in  the  field 
of  medicine,  we  must  endeavor  to  keep  the  practice  of  medicine,  and 
all  that  pertains  to  it,  free  from  any  possible  taint  of  commercialism, 
and  at  the  same  time  endeavor  to  build  up,  in  all  the  branches  of 
medicine,  a  spirit  of  rivalry  for  honest  scientific  investigation  and 
work  that  will  produce  exceptional  men  for  the  exceptional  cases 
and  places  as  they  occur. 
In  the  field  of  pharmacy  this  may  perhaps  best  be  done  by  pro- 
moting a  line  of  dispensing  pharmacies  that  are  independent  of  and 
free  from  the  spirit  of  commercialism  to  which  so  much  exception  is 
being  taken  at  the  present  time. 
For  this  purpose  an  innovation  that  would  be  of  advantage,  par- 
ticularly to  such  pharmacists  as  are  willing  to  conduct  their  shops 
along  professional  lines,  would  be  to  institute  a  periodic  and  sys- 
tematic revision  or  inspection  of  dispensing  pharmacies,  very  much 
the  same  as  is  done  in  some  of  the  European  countries,  particularly 
in  Germany,  at  the  present  time..  Such  an  inspection  could  be  "made 
in  a  number  of  ways — it  might  be  entrusted  to  a  state  or  to  a  local 
board  of  pharmacists — or,  and  this  I  believe  to  be  the  more  rational 
scheme,  it  might  be  entrusted  to  a  committee  composed  of  physicians 
and  pharmacists  under  the  authority  of  the  local  county  medical 
societies. 
To  prevent  any  suspicion  of  this  idea  being  original  with  me,  I 
should  like  to  state  that  some  eighty-three  years  ago,  when  the 
Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  was  founded,  the  apothecaries  and 
druggists  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia  and  the  surrounding  districts 
resolved,  or  rather  proposed,  "  that  the  whole  profession  should 
form  themselves  into  a  society  for  the  twofold  purpose  of  providing 
a  system  of  instruction  for  their  apprentices  and  subjecting  them- 
selves to  regulations  in  their  business." 
It  appears  that  the  latter  portion  of  this  proposal  was  allowed  to 
lapse,  largely,  perhaps,  due  to  the  fact  that  at  that  time  there  were 
comparatively  few  dispensing  drug  stores  in  the  city,  and  that  the 
system  of  regulation,  or  inspection,  as  was  then  proposed,  met  with 
considerable  opposition  on  the  part  of  druggists  whose  business  was 
largely  devoted  to  the  sale  of  paints,  glass  and  dyestuffs.  The 
