Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
July,  1918. 
A  Pharmacist  in  the  Navy. 
505 
wise  be  unproductive.  To  do  the  returned  soldier  the  honor  of  of- 
fering him  real  employment,  rather  than  proffering  him  the  ignominy 
of  a  charity  job. 
If  the  employer  will  do  this,  it  will  be  a  great  factor  in  making 
the  complete  elimination  of  the  dependent  cripple  a  real  and  inspir- 
ing possibility. 
SOME  EXPERIENCES  OF  A  PHARMACIST  AS  ONE  OF 
THE  ENLISTED  PERSONNEL  OF  THE  NAVY. 
By  W.  M.  Saylor. 
I  have  read  the  various  arguments,  published  in  the  May  edition 
of  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  in  favor  of  establishing 
a  Pharmaceutical  Corps  in  the  United  States  Army. 
That  the  profession  of  pharmacy  receives  no  consideration  and 
as  a  profession  does  not  exist  in  the  military  services  of  this  coun- 
try is  quite  well  known,  but  the  reasons  for  this  condition  existing 
are  not  so  well  known  or  at  least  not  easily  explained. 
Practically  every  ship  in  the  Navy  large  enough  to  carry  a  crew 
of  say  four  hundred  or  five  hundred  men  carries  quite  a  large  stock 
of  drugs  and  among  these  some  of  the  most  toxic  drugs  known. 
The  dispensary  and  drug-store  rooms  may  or  may  not  be  in  charge 
of  a  man  who  has  had  a  pharmaceutical  training;  though  in  case  a 
pharmacist  is  found  in  the  corps,  he  is  usually  given  "  Dispensary  " 
duty. 
The  pharmaceutical  duties  of  the  naval  pharmacist  (a  warrant 
officer)  are  only  secondary,  in  case  he  has  any  at  all,  his  duty  being 
clerical  work. 
No  special  training  of  any  kind,  not  even  a  high-school  education, 
is  required  for  entrance  into  the  Hospital  Corps  of  the  Navy. 
The  following  are  some  of  the  orders  I  have  received  on  board 
ship  and  carried  out  whenever  possible ;  many  times  the  limited  num- 
ber of  drugs  in  the  supply  table  did  not  permit  me  to  do  so. 
1.  "Take  two  smears  of  each  of  these  men's  throats  (sometimes 
four  or  five  men  at  a  time)  ;  stain  one  slide  with  Loeffler's  Methylene 
Blue,  the  other  by  Gram's  method  and  report  findings." 
2.  "  Get  a  specimen  of  this  man's  sputum  and  examine  for  tu- 
bercle bacilli  and  pneumococci." 
