Amdcl^mfm'}  The  Legislative  Year.  A7i 
zation  of  the  world,  and  presumably  of  Virginia,  has  reached  a  dizzy 
height,  we  are  treated  to  the  spectacle  of  physicians  being  converted 
magically  into  pharmacists  by  fiat  of  law — an  achievement  which 
would  have  delighted  the  heart  of  any  mysterious  alchemist  of  the 
dark  ages ! 
Turning  now  more  briefly  to  the  numerous  measures  which  failed 
of  success,  it  is  worth  while  pausing  at  first  to  remark,  what  has 
already  been  intimated,  that  for  the  most  part  the  bills  which  met 
their  death  were  the  very  ones  which  richly  deserved  such  a  fate. 
Nearly  all  of  them  were  either  unjust,  impossible,  visionary  or  all 
these  things  together.  There  were  a  few  exceptions,  however,  and 
these  may  receive  a  moment's  consideration. 
The  pharmacy  laws  of  Idaho  and  Texas  are  defective  in  providing, 
not  for  a  single  State  Board  of  Pharmacy,  but  for  county  or  district 
boards;  and  vain  attempts  in  both  States  were  made  again  this 
year,  as  they  had  been  made  before,  to  improve  the  situation.  The 
Texas  bill  passed  the  legislature  only  to  receive  the  Governor's 
veto.  The  pharmacists  of  Indian  Territory,  as  has  already  been 
stated,  failed  again  in  their  endeavor  to  secure  the  enactment  of  a 
pharmacy  law  and  redeem  their  Commonwealth  from  the  disgrace 
of  being  the  only  one  now  in  the  country  without  an  act  restricting 
the  practice  of  pharmacy  to  competent  persons ;  in  Florida  the 
druggists  were  unsuccessful  in  attempting  to  gain  the  passage  of 
amendments  strengthening  the  pharmacy  act;  in  the  prohibition 
State  of  Maine  they  failed  in  an  effort  to  procure  a  law  legalizing  the 
sale  of  liquor  in  drug  stores ;  in  Alabama  they  likewise  failed  to 
secure  an  amendment  preventing  physicians  from  registering  as 
pharmacists  without  examination ;  in  California  an  attempt  was 
unsuccessful  to  abolish  re-registration  and  make  the  State  support 
the  Board  of  Pharmacy  by  annual  appropriation ;  and  in  Pennsyl- 
vania a  bill  making  graduation  a  requirement  to  practice  fell  by  the 
wayside.  Cocaine  measures  of  varying  merit  failed  of  passage  in 
the  legislatures  of  Alabama,  California,  Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Mis- 
souri, Wyoming  and  West  Virginia.  "  Shorter  hours  "  bills,  intro- 
duced in  behalf  of  the  clerks,  met  the  same  fate  in  California,  Wis- 
consin, Minnesota  and  Washington,  D.  C. 
Leaving  these  more  or  less  commendable  measures,  most  of  which 
were  introduced  through  the  efforts  of  the  pharmacists  themselves, 
it  may  be  observed  that  the  year  has  been  fertile  in  two  types  of 
