624 
Editorial 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
<•      Sept.,  1918. 
eration  idea,  intensified  cooperation  on  such  matters  of  common  in- 
terest, can  be  developed  in  this  way.  We  are  pleased  to  note  that 
one  of  the  decisions  of  the  Drug  Trade  Conference  was  to  get  back 
of  the  movement  to  have  a  pharmaceutical  corps  established  in  the 
United  States  Army. 
G.  M.  B. 
THE  STANDARDIZATION  OF  PHARMACY. 
From  time  to  time,  arguments  have  appeared  in  pharmaceutical 
journals  advocating  that  drug  stores  should  be  classified  and  that  a 
differentiation  should  be  made  between  those  proprietors  of  drug 
stores  that  have  established  a  professional  standing  as  pharmacists 
and  others  who  have  devoted  their  efforts  mainly  to  merchandising 
and  the  upbuilding  of  mercantile  ratings. 
The  present  trend  of  pharmaceutical  thought  is  toward  a  clas- 
sification by  which  the  compounding  of  prescriptions  and  the  deal- 
ings in  potent  medicaments  shall  be  restricted  to  professionally  edu- 
cated pharmacists  and  the  merchandising  of  the  numerous  com- 
modities, very  largely  side  lines,  commonly  sold  in  drug  stores  shall 
be  left  to  another  class  of  merchants  who  have  not  the  necessary 
qualifications  and  education  of  the  pharmacists.  In  many  of  the 
European  countries  such  a  method  has  been  in  vogue  and  the  phar- 
macist or  apothecary  holds  a  distinctive  position  above  that  of  the 
drug-store  keeper  and  many  other  merchants. 
A  short  time  ago,  it  was  seriously  proposed  that  there  should  be 
established  a  class  of  "  certified  pharmacists."  The  questions  nat- 
urally arose  who  was  to  have  the  authority  for  the  certification  and 
what  should  be  the  appropriate  rules  and  regulations  for  such  stand- 
ardization? Pharmacists  would  not  be  willing  to  delegate  such  con- 
trol and  authority  to  a  medical  organization  or  to  a  politically  ap- 
pointed board  and  as  no  definite  standard  was  available  and  the 
authority  for  such  action  was  not  vested  in  any  body  pharmaceutic, 
this  project  remained  as  an  undeveloped  proposal. 
At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  Conference  of  Pharmaceutical 
Faculties,  the  President,  Professor  Henry  Kraemer,  took  a  pro- 
nounced stand  in  favor  of  the  classification  of  dealers  in  drugs  into 
two  classes,  the  pharmacists  or  apothecaries  and  the  druggists. 
As  a  basic  proposition,  thoughtful  pharmacists  already  have 
