334  Argument  of  Dr.  J.  Madison  Taylor.  {Am-$™'^lxm' 
greatest  need,  who  are  offering  their  bodies,  if  necessary,  as  a  sacri- 
fice that  the  nation  may  live,  be  given  less  protection  against  the 
dangers — the  serious  dangers — of  incompetent  pharmaceutical  serv- 
ice than  they  had  in  civil  life  before  they  enlisted  in  the  Army?  The 
answer  rests  with  you,  gentlemen ! 
Philadelphia  Drug  Exchange, 
(Signed)  J.  W.  England, 
Secretary. 
ARGUMENT  OF  DR.  J.  MADISON  TAYLOR  IN  FAVOR  OF 
A  PHARMACEUTICAL  CORPS  IN  THE  U.  S.  ARMY.1 
Committee  on  Military  Affairs, 
House  of  Representatives, 
Hon.  S.  Hubert  Dent,  Chairman, 
Washington,  D.  C. 
Gentlemen:  We  physicians  who  appear  before  your  committee 
would  count  ourselves  blameworthy  in  advocating  the  establishment 
of  a  Pharmaceutical  Corps  in  the  military  service,  did  we  not  believe 
on  good  authority  we  were  rendering  an  important  service  to  the 
nation  and  the  nation's  defenders. 
In  the  forward  press  of  advance  in  social  and  national  welfare, 
the  science  of  pharmacy,  and  in  particular  the  present  qualifications 
of  pharmacists,  may  not  yet  be  appreciated.  They  no  longer  are 
mere  vendors  or  purveyors  of  drugs,  they  constitute  a  learned  pro- 
fession demanding  of  themselves  a  scientific  training  and  equip- 
ment competent  to  meet  the  demands  of  modern  medical,  surgical 
and  sanitary  science.  Among  their  ranks  are  numbered  a  large 
proportion  of  highly  educated  experts  in  many  of  the  same  funda- 
mental lines  on  which  the  profession  of  medicine  is  advancing. 
They  now  constitute  a  powerful  and  effective  national  organization 
of  research  workers,  of  chemists,  of  biologists,  of  physiologists,  of 
toxicologists,  of  serologists,  of  bacteriologists,  devoted  to  the  eluci- 
dation of  the  more  obscure  but  essential  problems  concerned  in  con- 
serving and  saving  human  life. 
They  cover,  and  cover  well,  a  domain  which  the  medical  pro- 
fession cannot  devote  their  time  to,  since  pharmaceutic  purposes 
are  to  perfect  the  instrumentalities  and  agencies  surgeons  must  find 
1  Presented  at  hearing  on  the  Edmonds  Bill,  H.  R.  5531,  March  19,  1918. 
