TJ.    FEB  2  1900  6- 
THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
FEBRUARY,  igoo. 
THE  DRUG  AND  HERB  VENDORS  OF  THE  SIDEWALKS 
OF  PHILADELPHIA. 
By  Charges  H.  LaWa^l. 
Pharmacy  as  a  profession  has  made  great  progress  during  the  past 
few  decades,  but,  while  it  has  developed  along  certain  lines,  the 
development  has  mainly  pertained  to  improvements  in  the  prepa- 
ration of  galenicals  and  it  has  lost  ground  in  other  directions,  par- 
ticularly in  pharmacognosy,  or,  to  apply  a  broader  term,  pharmaceu- 
tical botany. 
The  pharmacist  of  to-day  buys  his  drugs  in  the  ground  or  pow- 
dered condition,  when  formerly  he  purchased  them  in-  the  original 
condition  and  ground  them  himself,  and  still  previous  to  that  time 
he  collected  many  of  them  with  his  own  hands.  In  testimony  of 
this  fact  we  have  only  to  consult  some  of  the  earlier  works  on  phar- 
macy, where  pharmaceutical  calendars  will  be  found,  each  separate 
month  containing  a  list  of  the  plants  in  flower,  a  list  of  the  plants 
which  are  to  be  collected,  and  a  list  of  the  preparations  which  can 
be  prepared  most  advantageously  at  that  particular  period  of  the 
year. 
It  may  prove  interesting  as  well  as  instructive  to  quote,  from  one 
of  these  works,  these  lists  for  one  of  the  twelve  months,  as  many 
pharmacists  of  to-day  are  so  busy  with  their  efforts  to  keep  up 
with  the  times  that  they  have  but  little  time  to  devote  to  the  study 
of  former  conditions. 
In  "  Strumpf's  Allgemeine  Pharmakopce,"  published  in  Leipzig  in 
I  86 1 ,  such  a  calendar  is  given  for  use  in  Germany,  but  it  will  illus- 
(59) 
