406 
Beginnings  of  Pharmacy  in  America. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1  September,  1907. 
age.  About  1817  Dr.  Lyman  Spalding  proposed  a  plan  for  forming 
a  National  Pharmacopoeia  to  the  Medical  Society  of  the  State  of 
New  York.  This  plan  proved  to  be  practicable,  and  as  a  direct 
result  of  this  series  of  efforts  the  first  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United 
States  was  published  by  a  committee  appointed  for  this  purpose,  in 
Boston,  in  1820.  Much  of  the  credit  for  the  successful  inaugu- 
ration of  this  work  belongs  to  Dr.  Spalding,  who  was  one  of  the 
delegates  to  the  National  Medical  Convention  and  the  chairman  of 
the  Publication  Committee. 
The  medical  schools  in  different  sections  of  the  country  early 
recognized  the  necessity  of  including  instruction  in  pharmacy  in 
their  regular  curriculum,  and  a  number  of  them  included  pharmacy 
in  the  titles  of  one  of  their  professors.  About  1820  no  less  than 
six  of  the  twenty  medical  schools  enumerated  by  Thacher  in  his 
History  of  Medicine  in  America,  included  more  or  less  extensive 
instruction  in  pharmacy.  The  chair  of  pharmacy  was  usually  com- 
bined with  that  of  chemistry  or  materia  medica,  although  in  one 
instance  it  was  combined  with  obstetrics. 
The  first  school  in  America  to  include  pharmacy  in  the  title  of 
one  of  its  professors  was  the  then  newly  reorganized  Medical  Depart- 
ment of  the  College  of  Philadelphia,  where  Dr.  Samuel  Powell 
Griffitts  was  elected  professor  of  materia  medica  and  pharmacy  in 
1789.  On  the  fusion  of  the  College  with  the  University  of  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  to  form  the  still  existing  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Dr.  Griffitts  was  continued  as  professor  of  materia  medica 
and  pharmacy  until  he  resigned  in  1796. 
The^first  recorded  attempt  to  teach  pharmacy  to  others  than  regu- 
larly matriculated  students  in  medical  schools  was  made  in  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  in  18 16,  by  Dr.  James  Mease,  a  well-known  medical 
practitioner  and  author.  According  to  "  The  History  of  the  Medical 
Department  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,"  by  Dr.  Joseph 
Carson,  Dr.  James  Mease  applied  for  and  was  granted  permission  to 
hold  the  introductory  lecture  to  his  course  on  pharmacy  in  the  col- 
lege buildings.  This  is  said  by  Carson  to  have  been  the  first  attempt 
to  improve  the  condition  of  pharmacy  in  America,  by  any  attempt 
at  systematic  instruction,  public  or  private. 
Singularly  enough,  these  meagre  references  to  the  minutes  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  are  practically 
the  only  information  available  at  the  present  time  on  the  subject. 
