264 
American  Chemical  Society. 
Am.  Jour.  Phartn. 
June,  1907. 
activity;  has  seen  the  birth  of  the  Food  and  Drugs  Act ;  has  experi. 
enced  the  attempt  to  bring  into  closer  harmony  and  relationship  the 
medical  and  pharmaceutical  professions ;  has  witnessed  the  climax 
of  the  popular  demonstration  against  the  patent-medicine  evil ;  and 
so,  I  say,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  first  year's  meetings  of  our  local 
section  have  been  devoted,  if  I  may  offer  the  criticism,  almost  too 
closely  to  the  consideration  of  these  legislative,  economic,  and 
political  matters,  to  the  exclusion  of  purely  scientific  pharmacy. 
The  error  in  the  American  Chemical  Society  has  been  on  one  side, 
that  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  on  the  other ; 
here  we  have  the  two  extremes. 
In  the  year  to  come  let  us  not  make  the  serious  mistake  of  crowd- 
ing out  all  scientific  papers  and  discussions.  That  this  has  been 
done  has  been  felt  by  several  pharmacists  and  pharmaceutical 
chemists  engaged  in  the  advance  of  pharmaceutical  science.  This 
feature  of  our  work  has  been  to  a  limited  extent  covered  by  the 
pharmaceutical  meetings  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy, 
but  even  here,  economic  subjects  have  taken  up  much  time,  and  the 
holding  of  afternoon  meetings,  as  a  rule,  has  not  enabled  the  attend- 
ance to  be  all  that  could  be  desired.  Several  men  have  spoken  to 
me  about  it,  and  this  idea  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  crystallize  into 
the  proposition  to  form  a  local  society  or  club  of  pharmaceutical 
chemists  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  scientific  matters  appertaining 
to  their  profession.  I  trust  that  it  meets  with  the  entire  approval 
of  those  who  have  spoken  to  me  about  it  to  suggest  that  the  local 
section  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  should  make 
the  organization  of  such  a  club  entirely  unnecessary.  This  local 
section  should  be  the  breeding  place,  so  to  speak,  of  many  of  the 
scientific  papers  and  discussions  to  be  brought  before  the  annual 
meeting. 
We  hear  much  these  days  about  the  need  for  advancing  the  status 
of  professional  pharmacy.  We  cannot  accomplish  this  by  devoting 
all  our  time  to  the  legislative  and  political  aspects  of  our  business 
affairs ;  we  must  discuss  scientific  papers,  and  we  must  encourage 
our  members  who  have  the  time  and  facilities  for  pharmaceutical 
research  to  contribute  such  articles,  regardless  of  whether  they  are 
in  the  retail  drug  business,  or  members  of  the  scientific  staffs  of 
manufacturing  houses,  or  engaged  in  teaching  in  our  colleges  of 
pharmacy. 
