As^ptemberhia9OT!' }    Beginnings  of  Pharmacy  in  America.  409 
While  provisions  had  been  made  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
University  for  instituting  a  course  in  pharmacy,  the  project  met 
with  such  strenuous  opposition  from  the  druggists  and  apothecaries 
of  Philadelphia  that  not  a  single  student  ever  attended  the  lectures 
in  the  Medical  Department  with  a  view  of  securing  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Pharmacy.  A  careful  review  of  the  minutes  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees  and  also  of  the  minutes  of  the  Medical  Faculty  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  failed  to  show  any  record  of  students  in 
pharmacy,  and  there  is  but  one  other  record  of  the  degree  of  Master 
of  Pharmacy  having  been  awarded.  This  was  at  the  medical  com- 
mencement, on  April  4,  1823,  when  the  degree  of  Master  of  Phar- 
macy was  conferred  on  Dr.  Charles  T.  Wilstach,  a  graduate  of  the 
Medical  Department  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  of  the  class 
of  1820. 
It  was  on  February  23,  1 821,  two  days  after  the  adoption  of  the 
resolution  instituting  the  degree  of  Master  of  Pharmacy  by  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  that  the  apothecaries  and  druggists  of 
the  city  and  liberties  met  in  Carpenters'  Hall,  to  object  to  the 
institution  of  a  school  of  pharmacy  in  the  University,  and  to  organize 
themselves  into  a  society  "  for  the  twofold  purpose  of  providing  a 
system  of  instruction  in  pharmacy,  and  subjecting  themselves  to 
regulations  in  their  business."  This  proposition  was  subscribed  to 
by  sixty-eight  of  the  leading  apothecaries  of  the  city  and  liberties  of 
Philadelphia. 
That  the  Philadelphia  apothecaries  were  deeply  in  earnest  in  this 
new  undertaking  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  they  immediately  set 
about  to  inaugurate  their  new  school. 
They  secured  as  their  professor  of  materia  medica  and  pharmacy 
Dr.  Samuel  Jackson,  a  well-known  medical  practitioner  and  teacher 
of  Philadelphia,  and  as  professor  of  chemistry,  Dr.  Gerard  Troost, 
one  of  the  best-informed  and  most  capable  chemists  of  that  time. 
The  first  regular  course  of  instruction  in  this  new  school  of  phar- 
macy was  begun  on  November  1,  182 1,  and  continued  to  March  I, 
1822. 
For  several  years  it  was  thought  that  the  satisfaction  of  having 
attended  a  course  of  lectures  in  the  college  would  itself  suffice  to 
bring  students,  without  resorting  to  the  giving  of  degrees  or 
diplomas,  and  it  was  not  until  January  31,  1826,  that  the  members 
of  the  College  finally  agreed  that  in  future  all  students  who  had 
