190 
Editorial, 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    April  1, 1872. 
Pharmacy  by  the  National  Medical  College  (Medical  Department  of  Colum- 
bian College).  This  institution,  likewise  situated  in  the  National  Capital,  has, 
since  1870,  connected  with  it  a  school  of  pharmacy,  the  announcement  of  the 
second  course  of  lectures  of  which  is  before  us.  The  regulations  for  graduation 
are  substantially  the  same  as  those  of  the  Colleges  of  Pharmacy  within  the 
United  States,  except  that  an  apprenticeship  of  three  years  is  required.  The 
lectures  on  Pharmacy,  which  chain's  held  by  Dr.  R.  H,  Stabler,  of  Alexandria, 
Ya.,  appear  proper  and  to  the  purpose.  Of  the  other  two  branches,  we  are  in- 
formed that  the  lectures  on  Materia  Medica  and  Chemistry  will  be  substantially 
the  same  delivered  to  the  medical  classes  (Italics  our  own).  This  we  consider 
radically  erroneous.  Our  position  on  this  question,  as  far^is  materia  medica 
is  concerned,  is  fully  expressed  in  the  following  quotation  from  the  valedictory 
address  lately  delivered  to  the  graduating  class  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy: 
"The  pharmacist  studies  materia  medica  with  a  different  eye  and  from  a  dif- 
ferent standpoint  as  the  physician.  The  latter  looks  solely  to  the  physiologi- 
cal and  therapeutic  effects  of  the  drugs  prescribed  by  him  ;  the  former,  know- 
ing that  these  results  can  be  obtained  from  the  articles  in  question  only  when 
they  possess  certain  physical  and  chemical  characteristics,  looks  mainly  to 
these,  and  judges  by  their  presence  or  absence  of  the  suitableness  of  the  drug 
for  use  in  medicine.  When  prescribing  opium,  ipecacuanha,  cinchona,  aloes  or 
any  other  article  of  the  materia  medica.  theoretically  the  physician  cares  not 
for  the  articles  prescribed,  but  solely  for  the  effects  which  the  accumulated  ex- 
perience of  thousands  of  observers  leads  him  to  expect  from  these  drugs  under 
given  conditions.  But  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  the  pharmacist  to  know  that 
whatever  may  be  prescribed  is  in  such  a  state  and  of  such  composition  as  the 
accumulated  experience  of  another  class  of  observers  has  shown  to  be  the  nor- 
mal one,  and  moreover  to  be  the  one  from  which  the  reliable  information  of  the 
effects  in  health  and  disease  has  been  obtained.  In  a  word,  the  physician  stu- 
dies mainly  pharmacology,  that  is  that  branch  of  materia  medica  which  treats 
of  the  physiological  and  therapeutical  powers  and  effects  of  drugs,  even  though 
he  may  not  be  able  to  recognize  or  identify  the  articles  which  he  orders  for  his 
patients;  while  the  pharmacist  has  to  devote  his  energies  mainly  to  pharma- 
cognosy, or  that  branch  of  materia  medica  which  treats  of  the  identity,  proper 
composition,  quality  and  preservation  of  these  medicinal  agents,  of  the  detailed 
activity  of  which  he  may  be  ignorant,  though  he  must  know  the  ordinary  and 
the  maximum  doses  which  cannot  be  exceeded  unless  in  exceptional  cases, 'the 
circumstances  and  conditions  to  be  defined  by  the  physician." 
Our  views  are  similar  in  relation  to  chemistry,  if  a  little  more  of  that  science 
is  to  be  taught  than  the  mere  rudiments,  if  the  endeavor  is  to  teach  its  practi- 
cal application  to  pharmacy,  medicine  or  other  sciences  and  arts.  The  princi- 
ples, the  fundamental  ideas  and  theories  of  chemistry  are  the  same  in  whatever 
relation  or  application  it  may  appear  ;  but  the  times  of  half  or  three-quarters 
of  a  century  ago  have  long  since  passed  away,  when  it  was  possible  for  the  phys- 
ician or  the  pharmacist  to  master  the  entire  field  of  that  science  of  almost 
universal  applicability.  Special  courses  have  none  the  less  become  necessary 
for  these  two  than  for  the  professional  geologist,  metallurgist,  botanist,  physi- 
ologist, &c. 
The  impetus  to  the  special  education  of  the  pharmacist  in  the  United  States 
was  given  when  that  time-honored  institution,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
