470 
EDITORIAL. 
ing  them,  and  even  for  a  knowledge  of  their  existence,  and  of  the  times 
at  which,  some  ten  days  previously,  they  had  appeared.  I  hope  he  re- 
ceived, in  due  time,  the  copy  of  the  address  which  I  placed  for  him  in 
Blood's  Despatch,  and  by  means  of  which  I  have  supposed  the  reviews 
to  have  been  written. 
The  vehemence  and  harshness  of  this  attack  have  the  more  surprised 
me,  as  the  present  is  the  only  instance  in  which  any  opinion  condemnatory 
of  the  address'  has  reached  me  ;  and  I  have  even  had  the  pleasure  of  re- 
ceiving messages  from  some  of  the  parties  blamed  in  it,  which  communi- 
cations, with  limited  exceptions,  declared  to  be  "of  course,"  are  highly 
complimentary.  I  have  two  letters  in  relation  to  it  from  another  city, 
and,  as  I  have  reason  to  believe,  from  highly  competent  pharmaceutical 
sources,  and  not,  as  yet,  a  word  of  blame.  The  Society  did,  certainly, 
not  only  "order"  the  pamphlet  to  be  published,  but  direct  an  extra 
number  of  copies  to  be  struck  off  for  distribution,  avowedly  because  the 
members  were  pleased  with  it. 
Neither  can  I  see  why  the  thunders  of  denunciation  should  be  levelled 
with  such  intensity  at  me,  when,  in  the  same  two  numbers  of  the  Journal, 
there  are  reviews  of  three  criticisms  on  the  restrictions  necessary  for 
apothecaries,  the  one  by  an  author  who  is  named,  the  other  by  the  legis- 
latures of  two  States  ;  and  in  neither  of  these  is  there  any  indignation 
exhibited,  either  against  the  members  of  another  profession,  that  of  the 
law,  or  against  those  with  whom  we  practise  so  much  freedom  of  speech, 
our  public  servants,  the  law-givers.  Is  the  distinction  made  against  me 
because  I  live  in  the  same  city  ?  Or  is  it  because  I  am  a  physician,  and 
the  reviewer  believed  that  his  acknowledged  labor  and  abilities  had 
placed  the  pharmaceutical  profession  at  a  "  status  "  superior  to  that  of 
the  medical  body,  and  made  it  unbecoming  for  the  latter  to  criticise  it 
at  all?  Or,  was  it  from  some  other  consideration,  which  pointed  at  the 
present  writer  as  one  whom  it  would  be  advantageous  to  attack,  and 
who  would  be  unlikely  to  retort  ? 
Mr.  William  Procter.  Jr.,  appears  as  the  responsible  author  of  these  two 
reviews.  By  his  name  I  have  been  accustomed  to  believe  that  I  was 
reminded  of  not  only  a  personal  friend  of  many  years'  standing,  but  an 
individual,  learned,  accomplished,  loving  truth  and  science,  and  endowed 
with  entire  delicacy  and  hatred  of  injustice.  I  am  still  at  a  loss,  after 
re-perusing  both  of  his  reviews  and  my  own  paper,  to  discover  the  faulty 
language  of  which  I  have  been  guilty  ;  or  in  what  it  is  blamable  to  "speak 
thus"  of  the  apothecaries  of  Philadelphia;  unless,  indeed,  the  reviewer 
thinks  it  improper  in  me  to  criticise  them  at  all. 
The  only  suggestion  of  improper  language  which  I  have  either  thought 
of  myself  or  heard  intimated,  in  my  inquiry,  by  apothecaries  of  my  ac- 
quaintance, as  alluded  to  here,  apply  to  the  use  of  the  word  Jeshurun, 
and  to  the  winding  up  of  the  remarks  about  the  assault  which  I  conceived 
to  have  been  made  upon  a  physician  in  a  case  which  had  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  public.  I  fear  some  of  my  critics  are  not  profound  in 
their  Bible  studies.  Jeshurun,  in  my  dictionary,  means  "  the  righteous 
people,"  or  "the  upright  people,"  and  is  applied  to  the  chosen  race  of 
Israel.  In  the  other  instance,  if  I  used  a  Scriptural  expression  of  very 
solemn  context,  in  speaking  of  the  successful  defence  of  a  physician  whom 
there  was  no  cause  to  suspect,  the  expression  was  prompted  by  indigna- 
tion at  what  I  apprehended  to  be  attempts  habitually  repeated  to  throw 
responsibility,  blame  and  permanent  suspicion  upon  the  physicians, 
whenever  such  things  occurred ;  both  as  a  gratification  of  malignity 
against  better,  more  scrupulous  and  more  painstaking  men,  and  as  a 
convenient  mode  of  directing  the  public  attention  in  the  direction  of 
