278 
U.S. P.  National  Convention. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I       June,  1900. 
Association  ;  New  York  State  Pharmaceutical  Association  ;  Albany  College  of 
Pharmacy  ;  Brooklyn  College  of  Pharmacy  ;  King's  County  Pharmaceutical 
Society  ;  Buffalo  College  of  Pharmacy  ;  New  York  College  of  Pharmacy  ; 
German  Apothecaries  of  City  of  New  York  ;  North  Carolina  Pharmaceutical 
Association  ;  Ohio  State  Pharmaceutical  Association  ;  Ohio  State  University  ; 
Northern  Ohio  Druggists  Association ;  Cincinnati  College  of  Pharmacy  ; 
Cleveland  School  of  Pharmacy  ;  Scio  College  ;  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical 
Association  ;  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy ;  Alumni  Association  of 
P. CP.  ;  Pittsburg  College  of  Pharmacy;  South  Carolina  Pharmaceutical 
Association  ;  Medical  College  of  State  of  South  Carolina  (Department  of 
Pharmacy)  ;  South  Dakota  Pharmaceutical  Association  ;  Tennessee  State 
Druggists'  Association  ;  Vanderbilt  University  ;  Virginia  Pharmaceutical  Asso- 
ciation ;  Wisconsin  Pharmaceutical  Association  ;  Wisconsin  University. 
It  is  very  interesting  to  note  the  uniform  representation  of  the  medical  and 
pharmaceutical  professions,  and  the  disposition  to  make  the  coming  Pharma- 
copoeia practicable  and  useful  to  both  physician  and  apothecary.  The  Con- 
vention was  called  to  order  promptly  at  12  o'clock,  on  May  2,  1900,  by  the 
President,  Dr.  H.  C.  Wood,  who  then  introduced  Hon.  John  B.  Wight,  Com- 
missioner of  the  District  of  Columbia,  who  welcomed  the  delegates  in  a  fitting 
address  to  the  Capital  of  the  United  States.  After  the  reading  of  the  official 
call  by  W.  S.  Thompson,  President  Wood  delivered  his  address,  which  we  pub- 
lish nearly  in  full. 
PRESIDENT'S  ADDRESS. 
By  H.  C.  Wood. 
"In  the  thought  of  the  Infinite,  it  may  well  be  that  event  follows  event  in 
unbroken  sequence,  from  infinity  to  infinity,  but  man,  bound  to  time  by  the 
limitations  of  his  own  existence,  for  his  own  purposes  arbitrarily  breaks  the 
monotony  of  progress,  and  calls  the  larger  fragments  years,  decades,  centuries. 
To-day  the  tally  of  the  decades  is  full,  and  assembled  here  together  we  stand 
upon  one  of  those  great  mounds  which  mark  the  passage  of  a  centur}\  Look- 
ing forward,  as  a  traveller  who  has  reached  some  high  dividing  summit,  we 
strive  to  peer  into  the  future,  but  its  mists  are  impenetrable,  and  what  seem  to 
our  straining  vision  the  outlines  of  figures  are  but  the  projected  shadows  of  the 
present.  The  view  behind  is  plainer  ;  the  roads  by  which  we  have  reached  the 
summit  are  crowded  with  footsteps,  in  the  nearby  sharp  and  distinct,  and 
fading  with  the  distance.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  is  but  natural  that  the 
opening  address  of  your  President  should  take  a  historic  tinge,  and  that 
before  we  settle  down  to  work  we  should  try  to  draw  from  the  past  such  lessons 
for  the  present  as  shall  make  secure  the  future.  Such  retrospect  is  especially 
fitting,  since  our  labors,  when  they  shall  be  carried  to. their  end,  will  finish  the 
first  century  of  Pharmacopoeia  work  in  the  United  States. 
"It  is  true  that,  as  told  in  the  historical  introduction  to  the  Pharmacopoeia, 
there  was  published  in  Philadelphia,  in  1778,  for  military  purposes,  a  small 
Pharmacopoeia,  but  it  was  the  Counsellors  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical 
Society,  who,  in  1805,  first  appreciated  the  need  in  America  of  a  general 
Pharmacopoeia,  and  it  was  the  result  of  their  labors,  issued  in  1808,  that  sug- 
gested to  Dr.  Lyman  Spalding,  of  New  York  City,  the  formation  of  the 
National  Standard. 
