260 
William  Procter,  Jr. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June.  1900. 
monthly  issue,  and  after  editing  the  April  number  resigned  his 
position,  and  was  succeeded  by  Prof.  John  M.  Maisch.  He  had  con- 
templated a  relinquishment  of  his  editorial  duties  for  some  time, 
and  in  a  written  communication  to  the  College  some  months  pre- 
viously,  had  advocated  a  monthly  issue  of  the  Journal,  and 
requested  to  be  relieved  from  the  editorship  as  early  as  the  College 
could  find  a  suitable  successor. 
For  twenty  years  the  Journal  had  been  under  his  management 
in  its  editorial  department,  and  how  successfully  that  management 
was  conducted  the  volumes  issued  during  that  period  are  the  best 
testimony.  The  original  matter  from  his  pen,  and  his  judicious 
selections,  gave  to  it  a  value  and  standing  among  American 
pharmacists,  and  made  it  the  most  complete  history  extant  of  the 
progress  of  pharmaceutical  science  in  the  United  States.  As  an 
editor,  he  was  just  to  all  contributors,  forbearing  in  criticism,  never 
indulging  in  personal  or  sarcastic  comments,  ever  ready  to  expose 
fraud  and  empiricism,  loving  truth,  and  sometimes  proclaiming  it 
when  it  was  a  disagreeable  duty. 
After  resigning  the  editorship,  his  time  was  so  much  occupied  by 
his  business  that  his  name  does  not  appear  as  a  direct  contributor 
to  the  Journal;  in  April,  1871,  appeared  an  article  from  his  pen  on 
"Pharmaceutical  Titles,"  the  last  of  the  long  series.  The  General 
Index  of  the  Journal  exhibits  seven  columns,  numbering  some  550 
items,  under  his  name,  exclusive  of  extracts  and  editorials.  We  think 
it  may  safely  be  said  without  disparagement  to  any  of  his  predeces- 
sors in  the  editorial  management  of  the  Journal,  that  the  College 
was  fortunate  in  placing  the  Journal  in  his  hands.  No  man  of  the 
time  could  have  been  placed  on  the  outlook  commanding  the  hori- 
zon of  pharmaceutical  literature  whose  heart  was  more  thoroughly 
engaged  in  the  work,  and  who  was  gifted  with  quicker  perception 
or  better  judgment.  His  name  will  ever  be  associated  with  the  , 
progress  of  pharmacy  in  the  United  States,  and  the  twenty  volumes 
of  the  Journal  which  bear  his  name  as  editor  remain  a  monument 
to  his  genius  and  zeal. 
A  complete  review  of  the  published  essays  of  Professor  Procter 
would  occupy  top  much  space  for  this  memoir,  and  we  can  only 
allude  to  a  few  of  them.  His  thesis  in  1837  on  "  Lobelia  Inflata," 
in  which  he  demonstrates  the  presence  in  the  plant  of  an  alkaloid, 
describes  the  salt  formed  by  union  of  the  principal  acids  with  the 
alkaloid,  and  proposes  the  name  of  lobelina  for  the  active  principle. 
