480  American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  {^'ciSbir^mf.^' 
different  States  and  territories,  as  obtained  from  the  different  State 
and  territorial  associations. 
Dr.  J.  N.  McCormack,  a  delegate  from  the  American  Medical 
Association,  addressed  the  Section  on  "  What  Should  be  the  Relation 
of  Physicians  and  Pharmacists  ?  "  Dr.  McCormack  had  been  invited 
to  make  this  address,  in  consequence  of  certain  statements  contained 
in  a  report  which  he  presented  as  chairman  of  its  Committee  on 
Organization  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the  American  Medical  Asso- 
ciation (see  this  Journal,  July,  1907,  p.  331). 
In  beginning  the  discussion,  Dr.  McCormack  spoke  of  his  long 
connection  with  legislative  work  in  his  own  State,  and  of  the  oppor- 
tunities which  he  had  had  'to  study  the  relations  and  feelings  of  phy- 
sicians and  pharmacists,  not  only  in  this  country,  but  abroad.  He 
then  quoted  from  that  part  of  the  Atlantic  City  report  which  con- 
tained the  statement  that,  at  the  State  capitals  visited  by  him,  he 
found  expert  lobbyists  of  the  National  Association  of  Retail  Drug, 
gists  working  against  pure  food  and  drug  legislation.  He  said, 
however,  that  this  accusation  was  not  intended  to  apply  to  all  phar- 
macists, and  that  he  also  held  a  large  element  of  his  own  press  and 
people  responsible  for  many  of  the  abuses  of  this  class. 
Dr.  McCormack  then  referred  to  the  indiscriminate  selling  of 
habit-producing  drugs  and  nostrums,  and  said  that,  aside  from  the 
victims  of  this  practice,  the  three  factors  essential  to  its  continued 
existence  are  the  proprietor  or  manufacturer,  the  public  and  religious 
press  as  advertising  mediums,  and  the  drug  trade;  and  that  with- 
out the  complicity  of  these  three  agencies  this  business  could  not 
thrive  for  six  months.  He  said  that  of  these  three,  druggists  profit 
least  by  the  nostrum  business.  But  he  said  it  was  his  purpose  to 
consider  the -moral  phase  of  the  question,  and  that,  profit  or  no 
profit,  druggists  cannot  afford  longer  to  be  a  party  to  the  practice, 
or  to  oppose  legislation  intended  to  lessen  this  evil. 
Some  of  the  grave  and  harmful  effects  of  counter-prescribing  were 
pointed  out,  after  which  the  subject  of  dispensing  by  physicians  was 
considered.  This  latter  practice  was  attributed  in  part  to  "  the 
gradual  drifting  apart  and  coincident  misunderstanding  of  the  two 
vocations,"  but  mostly  to  the  imperfect  manner  in  which  pharma- 
cology and  therapeutics  have  been  taught  in  the  medical  schools. 
The  speaker  added  that  "  with  the  proper  conception  of  duty,  the 
time  has  come  when  no  physician  can  afford  to  prescribe  and  no 
