INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
317 
revision, to the aid of which the Colleges of Pharmacy were 
invited, so that the practical and peculiar skill of the apothe- 
cary might be brought into co-operation with the knowledge 
of the physician. This aid has been secured, and the Phar- 
macopoeia has been submitted to a thorough examination, 
which it is hoped will end in such an improvement as to ren- 
der it generally if not universally acceptable. 
I have alluded to the Pharmaceutical Colleges. It is not 
inappropriate to the occasion to state, that these institutions, 
of which one has been in efficient operation in Philadelphia 
since the year 1822, and another, subsequently founded, is 
now in operation in New York, have contributed very greatly 
to improve the art of preparing medicines in this country, and, 
hy elevating the profession of Pharmacy, have rendered it a 
much more efficient auxiliary to ours. The late Convention 
at Washington has, I think, merited well of the country in in- 
viting the co-operation of these Colleges in an important na- 
tional work, in which both professions are equally interested, 
and which can scarcely be satisfactorily completed unless by 
their joint labors. 
And now, gentlemen, having conveyed you through a brief 
history of the Materia Medica in this country, will you allow 
me to urge upon you the application of your own efforts to 
the improvement of this branch of medicine, and especially of 
that portion of it which concerns our indigenous products. I 
know no fairer field than this in which to gain a name for 
yourselves, or accomplish something useful to your profession. 
Success would be doubly grateful to a patriotic spirit; for 
while your country would share in the honor which might ac- 
crue to one of her sons, she would enjoy the advantage also 
of a cultivation of her own peculiar resources. Can I not 
paint to your fancy a prospect which will rouse all your ener- 
gies to realize it? Suppose that by a careful and laborious in- 
' vestigation, by a long course of varied experiment and accu- 
rate observation, you have arrived at the discovery of some 
valuable medicine hitherto concealed in the wilds of our coun- 
try, or of some yet unknown peculiarities and powers of a 
