144  Editorial  {^™-  £"ch;',9^iS: 
for  the  dispensing  of  prescriptions  calling  for  liquors.  No  provision 
has  been  made  in  the  law  for  any  such  procedure,  and  the  Internal 
Revenue  Department  would  not  be  justified  in  establishing  such  a 
method  of  dispensing  until  so  directed  by  Congressional  enactment. 
It  is  exceedingly  doubtful  if  government  dispensaries  would  be 
either  a  practicable  or  an  efficient  means  of  protecting  against  the 
illicit  use  of  such  spirits. 
The  shirking  of  the  responsibility  placed  upon  pharmacy  by  this 
Congressional  enactment  is  not  without  the  possibility  of  working 
to  the  detriment  of  pharmacy.  If  pharmacists  refuse  to  accept  the 
responsibility  placed  upon  them  by  the  government  to  dispense 
distilled  spirits  and  wines  for  medicinal  purposes y  and  insist  that  pre- 
scriptions for  such  must  be  compounded  only  in  government  dis- 
pensaries, the  public  and  legislative  bodies  may  construe  tnis  as  an 
indication  that  the  pharmacists  are  not  discharging  their  professional 
duties.  If  such  a  procedure  were  to  be  adopted  regarding  the  dis- 
pensing of  alcoholic  stimulants,  it  might  be  considered  as  a  precedent 
for  the  same  course  regarding  narcotic  drugs  or  toxic  remedial  agents, 
and  the  profession  of  pharmacy  certainly  would  be  destroyed  if 
such  a  procedure  was  to  be  carried  out  to  its  possible  conclusion. 
It  appears  to  us  that  it  is  the  duty  of  pharmacists  to  accept 
the  responsibility  placed  upon  them  by  this  enactment  and  fulfill 
same  in  a  professional  spirit.  The  following  sensible  view  of  the 
situation  is  presented  by  George  Victor  Haering,  of  Chicago,  in 
the  C.  R.  D.  A  News  and  republished  in  the  N.  A.  R.  D.  Journal,  of 
February  26,  1920: 
"Inasmuch  as  the  Government  has  recognized  liquor  as  a  inedicine 
and  a  medicine  only  and  left  it  to  the  discretion  of  physicians  so  to 
prescribe,  and  in  its  judgment  realized  that  the  registered  pharmacist 
by  virtue  of  his  high  standing  as  regards  character,  reliability  and 
honesty  was  the  one  best  qualified  to  dispense  and  handle  same, 
I  for  one  have  taken  o*it  a  license,  realizing  that  many  millions  in 
this  country  believe  sincerely  in  the  medicinal  virtues  of  liquor  and 
I  am  not  the  judge,  but  merely  the  'order  taker'  when  filling  afore- 
said prescriptions  written  according  to  the  precepts  of  the  law. 
"The  confidence  bestowed  upon  me  by  the  Government  in  per- 
mitting me  to  dispense  narcotics  and  liquors  shall  not  be  betrayed, 
as  I  fully  realize  the  high  honor  thus  bestowed  upon  me  as  a  pharma- 
cist as  well  as  my  duty  as  an  American  citizen."  G.  M.  B. 
