212 
A  DISCOURSE  ON  TITLES,  ETC. 
species  of  quackery  and  depending  only  upon  intrinsic  merit  for 
success,  such  a  pharmacist  might  be  independent  of  competition, 
and  if  he  possessed  adequate  personal  qualifications  for  his  pro- 
fession, a  good  situation  and  large  constituency,  and  was  respect- 
ed by  the  medical  profession  as  he  would  deserve,  he  might  de- 
monstrate the  feasibility  of  taking  from  Pharmacy  its  unprofes- 
sional features  and  giving  it  the  external  appearance  of  a  pro- 
fession. 
Keeping  open  shop  is  certainly  in  no  sense  degrading,  and  I 
would  not  in  this  portraiture  of  the  ideal  professional  pharmacist 
be  understood  as  setting  him  one  whit  above  those  of  us  who,  in 
good  faith  toward  physicians,  the  public  and  each  other,  fulfil  the 
obligations  of  our  present  position  ;  the  establishment  of  such  a 
professional  dispensing  office  would  be  an  experiment  upon  the 
public  demand  for  something  more  recherche  than  we  now  have 
in  this  country,  but  it  would  not  insure  more  accuracy  or  neat- 
ness in  the  execution  of  prescriptions  or  more  completeness  in 
the  arrangements  for  supplying  the  wants  of  the  sick  than  at 
present  are  secured  in  hundreds  of  our  first-class  shops. 
As  to  dealing  in  ideas  and  opinions  constituting  a  feature  of 
professional  as  contradistinguished  from  other  pursuits,  even  that 
distinction  fails  when  we  consider  how  large  a  share  these  ele- 
ments have  in  many  other  branches  of  trade  and  business.  Sci- 
ence has  entered  the  work-shop  and  counting-house,  and  is  per- 
haps more  thoroughly  appreciated  in  many  other  industrial  occu- 
pations than  in  medicine,  while  those  branches  of  education  the 
aggregate  of  which  constitute  what  is  technically  called  learning, 
find  votaries  in  those  of  almost  every  business  pursuit. 
Our  plain  republicanism  in  America  has  happily  abolished  the  • 
aristocratic  titles  in  which  many  Europeans  delight,  and  it  is 
equally  proper  that  we  should  confine  ourselves  in  the  circles  of 
science  and  professional  learning  to  those  titles  which  conveni- 
ence calls  for.  The  title  of  Doctor  applied  to  the  practitioner  of 
medicine  is  convenient  but  not  always  indicative  of  a  high  grade 
of  attainment.  Practically  it  means  something  far  less  dignified 
than  was  intended  when  it  was  applied  only  to  individuals  of  dis- 
tinguished learning  and  ability. 
Some  years  ago  a  physician  of  repute  in  the  South,  who  at- 
