820 
Correspondence. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Nov.,  1918. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
DR.  DOHME'S  PLEA  FOR  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  PHAR- 
MACY AS  AN  ESSENTIAL  INDUSTRY  AND 
PROFESSION. 
Baltimore,  Md.,  October  23,  1918. 
American  Journal  of  Pharmacy, 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Dear  Mr.  Editor: 
I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  state  that  as  the  result  of  an  effort 
on  my  part  as  per  correspondence  which  I  give  below,  I  have  se- 
cured a  decision  by  the  Surgeon-General  and  the  Provost  Marshal 
General  Crowder,  to  the  effect  that  drug  clerks  and  registered  phar- 
macists be  not  drafted  into  the  army  during  the  influenza  epidemic, 
and  that  thereafter  a  deferred  classification  should  be  given  them  if 
they  can  show,  as  practically  all  of  them  can,  that  their  position  is 
"necessary  to  the  enterprise  in  which  they  are  engaged."  This  is 
the  first  successful  effort  made  to  have  pharmacy  recognized  as  an 
essential  profession  and  industry  and  this  should  be  promptly  fol- 
lowed up  and  given  all  the  publicity  possible  so  as  to  get  behind  our 
movement  for  a  pharmacy  corps  public  sentiment  through  the  press : 
"  Baltimore,  October  10,  1918. 
"  To  the  Surgeon  General's  Office, 
"  Washington,  D.  C. 
"Gentlemen:  On  behalf  of  the  pharmacists  and  pharmaceutical 
colleges  of  this  country  I  am  again  addressing  you  in  this  emergency 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  people  and  the  medical  profession  by 
the  epidemic  now  raging  all  over  the  land.  I  appeared  before  your 
office  with  seventeen  other  representative  gentlemen  representing 
the  National  Drug  Trade  Conference  in  behalf  of  recognition  of 
pharmacy  as  an  essential  industry  and  profession,  on  September  26, 
and  were  heard  by  General  Richard  and  Colonel  Darnall.  You  re- 
fused to  recognize  pharmacy  as  an  essential  industry  and  as  a  needed 
branch  in  the  army  establishment.  Today  the  country  is  con- 
fronted by  a  demand  for  pharmacists'  skill  and  services  unprece- 
dented in  its  history.  Pharmacies  by  the  hundred  are  being  closed 
because  their  owners  or  their  registered  clerks  are  being  drafted  into 
the  army.    The  result  is  pharmacies  by  the  hundreds  everywhere 
