THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  PHARMACY 
SEPTEMBER,  ig20 
EDITORIAL. 
IS  THE  PRACTICE  OF  PHARMACY  TO  BECOME  A 
NEGLECTED  ART? 
Under  the  title  "Why  Proprietaries  Flourish"  the  following  letter 
is  published  in  The  Journal  oj  the  American  Medical  Association  for 
June  2,  page  558: 
''To  the  Editor: — The  following  experiences  seem  to  add  one  more 
to  the  many  reasons  offered  to  explain  why  proprietaries  and  ready- 
made  preparations  flourish  at  the  expense  of  the  official  drugs  and 
preparations:  A  few  days  ago  I  prescribed  Troches  of  Ammonium 
Chloride,  U.  S.  P.,  for  a  patient  of  exceptional  perseverance.  The 
next  day  he  had  not  yet  secured  .the  troches  and  told  me  that  he  had 
submitted  the  prescription  to  seven  pharmacies,  including  the  largest 
and  three  of  the  best  known  and  admittedly  the  best  equipped  in 
New  York.  All  told  him  that  these  troches  were  "Not  being  made 
any  more,"  and  that  they  were,  therefore,  unable  to  supply  him. 
He  thereupon  communicated  with  one  of  the  largest  wholesale 
manufacturing  pharmaceutical  houses  in  America  and  received  pre- 
cisely the  same  answer.  I  then  took  the  matter  up  with  a  first  class 
pharmacist  whom  I  knew  and  induced  him  to  prepare  this  difficult  ( !) 
troche,  for  which  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  gives  the  following  direc- 
tions: *Rub  the  powders  together  until  they  are  thoroughly  mixed; 
then  form  a  mass  with  syrup  of  tolu  and  divide  .  .  .' 
"Seven  pharmacists  declined  to  fill  a  prescription  for  an  official 
preparation  because  they  could  not  buy  the  preparation  from  a 
wholesaler,  and  it  required  some  persuasion  to  get  the  eighth  to  make 
the  preparation.  But  even,  worse,  several  of  the  pharmacists  offered 
my  patient  some  ready-made  troche  more  or  less  closely  resembling 
the  official,  or  offered  compressed  tablets  of  ammonium  chloride. 
