512  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  {^pfembe^isge0' 
at  10  o'clock  in  the  forenoon.  The  applicants  whose  names  had  been  read  by- 
Secretary  Kennedy  at  a  previous  session  were  declared  elected.  The  Committee 
on  President's  Address  reported.  The  measures  of  legislation  referred  to  and 
proposed  therein  were  approved  and  ordered  to  be  pressed  until  favorable 
action  is  secured.  The  Committee  recommended  that  the  General  Secretary 
cable  greetings, to  the  International  Exposition  in  Prague,  Austria.  This  gen- 
tleman afterwards  read  greetings  from  the  Wisconsin  Pharmaceutical  Associa. 
tion.  He  also  read  a  letter  from  the  Superintendent  of  the  Mechanics'  Institute 
of  Montreal,  in  which  that  officer  extended  the  privileges  of  the  Institute  to 
the  members  of  the  Association  during  their  stay  in  the  city.  Secretary  Ken- 
nedy read  the  minutes  of  a  Council  meeting,  which  stated  that  the  body  had 
elected  its  officers  for  the  coming  year,  with  Mr.W.  S.  Thompson,  of  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  as  Chairman  :  J.  M.  Good,  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  Vice-Chairmau  ;  and  G. 
W.  Kennedy,  Pottsville,  Pa. ,  Secretary  ;  and  that  Prof.  Whelpley's  proposition 
to  allow  periodicals  to  use  the  National  Formulary  free  of  charge,  provided  they 
did  not  publish  more  than  fifty  formulas  per  mouth,  was  accepted.  The  names 
of  twency-six  more  applicants  for  membership  were  read.  The  session  then 
adjourned.  At  10.55  Prof.  Sadtler  called  the  Section  on  Scientific  Interests  to 
order.    He  then  delivered  his  address,  which  was  devoted  to 
SOME  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  PHARMACIST  AMONG 
THE  GREAT  FAMILY  OF  SCIENTIFIC  STUDENTS  AND 
WORKERS. 
He  would  not,  he  said,  stop  to  answer  the  sneering  question  which  is  some- 
times asked  concerning  the  right  of  the  pharmacist  to  call  himself  a  scientific 
man.  "  That  is  his  birthright,  and  if  he  traces  back  the  early  history  of  chem- 
istry, botany,  or  even  medicine  in  its  primary  meaning  as  the  curative  art,  he 
will  find  that  they  were  cradled  and  fostered  in  the  pharmacist's  shop.  If  the 
modern  pharmacist  occasionally  sells  his  birthright  for  the  pottage  of  commer- 
cial gain,  it  cannot  take  from  the  earnest  and  conscientious  worker  inherited 
claims  to  a  broad  and  important  field  of  scientific  activity." 
The  speaker  then  briefly  defined  the  field  and  its  limits  which  is  peculiarly 
allotted  to  the  scientific  pharmacist.  The  study  of  pharmacognosy  he  consid- 
ered the  especial  field  that  should  be  cultivated  by  the  pharmacist.  Thereby 
we  are  able  to  see  that  it  antedates  the  history  of  modern  chemistry,  and  in 
the  Iatro  chemists  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  we  recognize 
the  scientific  pharmacists  of  those  days. 
"But,"  he  said,  "it  is  not  only  the  natural  sources  of  medicinally  active 
principles  that  should  occupy  the  scientific  pharmacist's  attention.  The  raw 
materials  which  yield  food  preparations,  and  those  which  are  the  basis  of  many 
large  chemical  industries,  equally  furnish  subjects  which  may  properly  attract 
the  working  investigator  of  the  pharmaceutical  profession.  Few  of  us  realize 
how  extensive  this  field  is  and  what  enormous  quantities  of  unutilized  mate- 
rials yet  remain  calling  for  investigation." 
The  speaker  then  called  attention  to  another  field,  namely,  that  of  organic 
synthetic  remedies,  which  belongs  to  the  pharmacist,  but  which  practically  he 
has  lost  by  his  inability  to  work  it.  In  consequence,  we  pay  to  German  manu- 
facturers from  four  to  six  prices  for  products  which  we  should  produce  at  home 
if  our  large  manufacturers  could  see  fit  to  put  the  same  amount  of  expert 
