Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1907. 
American  Chemical  Society. 
a  member  of  the  executive  committee,  I  am  more  familiar,  may  be 
of  interest.  This  section  was  organized  in  1899,  tne  eleventh  in  the 
country,  and  we  now  have  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  members, 
which  includes  all  members  within  a  radius  of  sixty  miles  from  the 
Philadelphia  City  Hall. 
Our  meetings  are  held  from  September  to  June,  inclusive,  on  the 
third  Thursday  evening  of  each  month, — generally  at  the  Engineers' 
Club  on  Girard  Street, — but  occasionally  at  the  Harrison  Laboratory 
of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  While  it  is  only  occasionally 
that  we  can  say  the  attendance  is  large,  our  meetings  generally 
make  up  in  enthusiasm  what  they  lack  in  numbers.  The  suburban 
membership,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  is  quite  loyal  to  our  meetings,  as 
towns  as  far  as  from  Reading  on  the  north  to  Millville,  N.  J.,  on 
the  south  are  generally  represented.  Our  present  chairman  is  from 
Bryn  Mavvr  College,  while  our  chairman- elect  is  from  Swarthmore. 
The  programmes  consist  almost  exclusively  of  the  reading  of  scien- 
tific papers,  which  are  generally  thoroughly  and  ably  discussed. 
Very  little  time  is  lost  in  the  transaction  of  business,  and  practically 
none  is  spent  on  the  political  questions  of  the  business  enterprises 
represented.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  latter  would  be  almost 
an  impossibility,  as  the  number  of  distinct  lines  of  work  repre- 
sented is  almost  as  great  as  the  membership.  A  natural  conclusion 
would  therefore  be  that,  with  a  membership  with  such  diverse  em- 
ployments, a  lack  of  unity  of  interest  would  prevail.  But  we  have 
happily  learned  by  experience  that  the  most  helpful  ideas  are  often 
derived  from  the  papers  of  those  whose  work  is  apparently  the 
farthest  removed  from  our  own. 
The  officers  of  the  local  section  consist  of  a  chairman,  vice-chair- 
man, secretary-treasurer,  and  an  executive  committee  of  three.  The 
busy  man  among  these  is  the  secretary-treasurer.  He  has  no  dues 
to  collect,  as  there  are  no  membership  fees  in  the  local  organization, 
the  rebate  from  the  general  society,  amounting  to  twenty  per  cent, 
of  the  dues  collected  from  the  members  residing  within  the  precincts 
of  the  local  section  territory  being  amply  sufficient  to  pay  all  local 
expenses.  As  is  the  case  in  our  A.  Ph.  A.  local  section  here,  how. 
ever,  the  executive  committee  has  largely  imposed  upon  the  good 
nature  and  well-known  working  capacity  of  the  secretary  to  arrange 
the  programmes,  entailing  not  a  little  work, — for  which  we  do  not 
always  remember  to  appreciate  him  as  much  as  we  should. 
