134 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL CONVENTION 
sections of the Union, by which their customs and practice may be assimila- 
ted ; that pharmaceutists would promote their individual interests, and ad- 
vance their professional standing, by forming associations for mutual pro- 
tection, and the education of their assistants when such association have 
become sufficiently matured ; and that, in view of these important ends, it 
is further 
" Resolved, That a Convention be called, consisting of three delegates 
each, from incorporated and unincorporated pharmaceutical societies, to 
meet at Philadelphia on the first Wednesday in October, 1852, when all 
the important questions bearing on the profession may be considered, and 
measures adopted for the organization of a National Association, to meet 
every year." 
The plan of organization here proposed is perhaps the best that 
could have been adopted, under all the circumstances, and yet I 
confess to some regrets that no way opened by which all pharma- 
ceutists who feel interested in the elevation of their profession, 
and the promotion of pharmaceutical reform, could partake in the 
deliberations of the Convention. If it were designed to legislate 
for a profession of pharmacy fully organized throughout the coun- 
try, I could more willingly acquiesce in the policy of requiring of 
every member a certificate of his appointment as the representa- 
tive of some local organization. But the actual condition of the 
drug trade, and the so called profession of pharmacy, is widely 
different. It is only in the large cities that they are organized at all. 
As far as educated apothecaries have penetrated in the great 
west, and in the more Southern states they are isolated, scattered 
here and there, with very little concert of action, and no definite 
organization ; they are, for the most part, surrounded by igno- 
rance,, overrun with quackery, and scattered singly among the le- 
gion of empyrics, they have scarcely strength to stem the current 
which sets so fatally downwards. Now for the encouragement 
and strengthening of such, the proposed Convention is eminently 
calculated, and by associating them in Convention with the apothe- 
caries of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati 
and other cities, in which the benefits of association are already 
more or less fully attained, the strong tie of professional and fra- 
ternal interest already measurably created by a common object and 
kindred pursuits, :nay be widened and strengthened, a renewed in- 
terest created in our art, and a higher appreciation of its dignity 
and importance as a branch of medical science. 
