Am.  Jour.  Pharm.) 
April,  1920.  j 
A  Bit  of  History. 
213 
American  science  and  American  art  were  in  the  formative  period. 
There  were  houses  to  erect,  bridges  to  build,  canals  to  dig,  roads  to 
be  made  passable.  Just  as  American  literature  was  principally 
political  in  character,  American  science  was  largely  applied  science, 
and  art,  industrial.  As  for  the  pharmacist,  he  was  busy  in  providing 
the  most  necessary  medicaments,  and  had,  speaking  generally,  as 
yet  no  leisure  for  scientific  experimentation. 
We  must  not  overlook  the  fact,  however,  that  at  a  time  when 
America  as  a  whole  was  still  in  the  pioneer  stage,  the  older  and  more 
densely  populated  districts  near  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  had  attained 
to  a  high  degree  of  culture.  Here  we  find  the  colleges  and  universities 
of  that  period,  and  the  learned  societies,  and  the  literary  organiza- 
tions, and  the  book  publishers.  It  is  here  that  we  must  look  for  the 
first  developments  in  pharmacy. 
In  1820,  Philadelphia,  which  had  served  as  the  national  capital, 
and  where  all  the  great  Americans  of  the  early  days  had  sojourned, 
the  largest  city  in  the  country  at  that  time,  with  130,000  inhabi- 
tants, an  important  seaport,  in  close  touch  with  the  old  world  civil- 
ization— Philadelphia,  the  seat  of  a  university,  and  of  the  Institute 
founded  by  Franklin — became,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  center  of 
learning.  And  medical  sciences  found  here  a  particularly  favorable 
atmosphere  for  growth.  And  hand  in  hand  with  the  progress  in 
medicine,  we  find  the  early  progress  of  pharmacy. 
To  be  sure  the  apothecary  of  1820  was  practicing  his  art  as  it  had 
been  developed  in  Europe.  If  he  was  American-born,  he  had,  in  all 
probability,  received  his  training  under  an  apothecary  who  in  turn 
had  been  an  apprentice  in  a  European  pharmacy.  If  he  was  a  rather 
recent  accession  to  the  population,  he  used,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  methods  and  the  textbooks  of  his  native  land.  The  pharma- 
copoeias of  London,  Edinburg  and  Dublin  were  at  that  time  in  con- 
stant use.  Uniformity  of  practice  was  conspicuous  by  its  absence; 
for  there  was  no  pharmacopoeia  as  yet  for  this  new  nation;  nor 
were  there  any  purity  standards  for  drugs  or  medicines.  As  for 
legislative  regulations  governing  the  practice  of  pharmacy,  no  laws 
of  that  character  had  as  yet  been  passed.  There  were  neither  pharm- 
aceutical organizations  nor  pharmaceutical  journals.  The  important 
textbooks  for  pharmacists,  with  the  exception  of  the  American 
Dispensatory,  then  already  in  its  fourth  edition,  were  foreign. 
