Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
December,  1907.  J 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
571 
limitations  of  pharmacists  and  physicians  as  outlined  by  Dr.  J.  N. 
McCormack,  in  his  address  before  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  in  New  York,  last  September. 
This  address  on  the  relations  of  pharmacists  and  physicians, 
appears  to  have  been  misunderstood,  or  at  least  misinterpreted,  by 
some  persons  who  really  should  know  better. 
The  portion  of  the  address  that  has  been  more  or  less  severely 
criticized  is  the  introduction,  consisting  largely  of  a  quotation  from 
the  report  of  the  committee  on  organization  of  the  American  Asso- 
ciation and  published,  in  part  at  least,  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Pharmacy,  1907,  page  331. 
To  any  one  who  has  followed  the  reports  of  legislative  work,  in 
connection  with  State  food  and  drug  legislation,  and  particularly  the 
work  done  in  connection  with  the  so-called  formula-on-the-bottle 
bills,  and  at  the  same  time  remembers  that  the  physician  and  the 
retail  druggist  look  upon  the  situation  from  a  radically  opposite 
point  of  view,  the  strictures  made  by  Dr.  McCormack  will  appeal 
as  being  moderate  indeed. 
Pharmacists,  if  they  wish  to  pose  as  professional  men,  cannot 
longer  avoid  their  responsibility  in  connection  with  the  sale  of  so- 
called  proprietary  remedies.  They  should  collectively,  and  if  this 
is  not  practicable,  they  must  individually  inquire  into  the  nature  and 
composition  of  the  remedies  they  dispense.  If  found  to  be  harmful, 
or  not  as  represented,  they  can  no  longer  shirk  responsibility  by 
hiding  under  the  time-worn  excuse  that  the  public  demands  them 
and  the  public  demands  must  be  supplied. 
It  is  rather  interesting  to  notice  how  widespread  the  present 
agitation  against  proprietary  and  fake  remedies  has  become.  The 
following  is  from  an  editorial  note  by  Gnomon  [Phar.  Jour.,  Lon- 
don, 1907,  page  360.): 
"  Sooner  or  later — and  sooner,  I  hope,  rather  than  later — phar- 
macists and  wholesale  druggists  will  recognize  that  they  are  equally 
interested  in  the  suppression  of  quackery  and  of  attempts  to  mon- 
opolize the  trade  in  medicines  by  more  or  less  insidious  methods. 
"  There  should  be  a  concerted  movement  in  the  direction  of  mak- 
ing it  clear  to  medical  practitioners  and  the  public  that  there  is  no 
virtue  in  secrecy  so  far  as  drugs,  chemicals  and  galenical  prepara- 
tions are  concerned,  and  that  all  the  effects  obtained  by  esoteric 
combinations  of   well  known  medicaments   can   be  equally  well 
