Atn'/aTiS34arm-}  Prof.  J.  M.  Maisch.  5 
wise  step  for  the  College  to  take,  as  each  Professor  subsequently 
greatly  enlarged  his  sphere  of  action  and  each  found  a  more  con- 
genial field  for  his  respective  talents.  Prof.  Maisch  retained  the 
chair  of  Materia  Medica  and  Botany  until  the  time  of  his  death,  a 
period  of  twenty-six  years,  and  the  services  which  he  has  rendered 
to  American  Pharmacy  during  this  time  can  never  be  forgotten. 
More  than  two  thousand  students  have  profited  by  his  thorough 
and  painstaking  instruction,  and  can  attest  to  the  profundity  of  his 
knowledge  and  the  unwearied  industry  which  he  ever  manifested  in 
the  discharge  of  his  official  duties. 
His  connection  with  this  Journal  began  at  an  early  date  and  was 
continued  as  long  as  he  lived,  first,  when  only  twenty-three  years 
old  as  a  writer  of  papers,  and  twelve  years  afterwards  he  succeeded 
the  talented  Procter  as  editor.  When  ill  health  compelled  Prof. 
Procter,  in  1870,  to  resign  the  editorship  of  the  American  Journal 
of  Pharmacy,  Prof.  Maisch  was  unanimously  chosen  to  fill  the  posi- 
tion and  at  the  same  time  the  Journal  was  enlarged  by  making  it  a 
monthly  instead  of  a  bi-monthly  publication,  and  the  same  qualities 
with  which  he  was  so  plentifully  endowed  were  now  enlisted  in  this 
new  field  of  labor.  The  year  1870  was  an  eventful  one  for  him,  for 
in  addition  to  his  other  duties,  he  was  called  to  take  charge  of  the 
chemical  laboratory,  which  had  been  organized  in  the  College, 
through  the  efforts  of  the  Alumni  Association. 
His  interest  in  Pharmaceutical  literature,  and  his  desire  to  add  to 
the  sum  of  knowledge  in  his  chosen  profession,  was  manifested  soon 
after  he  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  first  paper  which  he  wrote 
for  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  appeared  in  March,  1854, 
the  title  being  "  On  the  Adulteration  of  Drugs  and  Chemical  Pre- 
parations." This  was  a  subject  which  was  always  an  attractive  one 
to  his  mind  at  all  periods  of  his  professional  career,  many  of  his 
papers  in  the  later  years  of  his  life  being  devoted  to  the  detection 
of  adulterations,  sophistications  and  accidental  contaminations  found 
in  drugs.  This  was  a  natural  consequence  of  his  settling  down  to 
the  conviction  that  his  life-work  would  be  more  in  Pharmacology 
than  Pharmacy,  and  his  election  to  the  chair  of  Materia  Medica,  in 
1867,  and  subsequently  the  issue  of  the  National  Dispensatory, 
and  particularly  the  appearance  of  his  work  on  "  Organic  Materia 
Medica,"  showed  the  main  trend  of  his  researches,  the  former  work 
had  Dr.  Alfred  Stille,  as  medical  author,  he  furnishing  the  therapeu- 
