540  New  York  College  of  Pharmacy.  {ANoVemLr'i903m' 
the  College  of  Pharmacy  of  the  City  of  New  York,  as  long  as  mem- 
ory lasts." 
Professor  Reynold  Wilcox,  third  vice-president  of  the  Pharmaco- 
pceial  Convention,  spoke  as  follows : 
"  Mr.  President,  I  could  wish  that  someone  whose  acquaintance 
with  Dr.  Rice  had  been  longer  than  mine  had  been  chosen  to  speak 
to-night  of  the  influence  which  Dr.  Rice  has  had  upon  the  medical 
profession ;  but  as  I  look  back  upon  five  years  of  almost  daily  inter- 
course with  Dr.  Rice  during  the  period  of  my  service  at  Bellevue 
I  can  realize  more  and  more  that  a  long  acquaintance  was  not  neces- 
sary for  one  to  understand  what  Dr.  Rice  was.  The  impression 
which  he  gave  you  of  his  thorough  knowledge,  broad  learning  and 
scientific  enthusiasm  needed  not  years  for  development.  It  was 
apparent  to  the  earnest  student  who  met  him  for  the  first  time.  As 
one  reads  the  history  of  Dr.  Rice's  life  it  would  seem  as  if  he  were 
almost  possessed  of  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  If  you  will  pardon  me 
and  allow  me  to  go  back  scarce  a  quarter  of  a  century  to  the  days 
of  therapeutic  nihilism,  when  neither  in  New  York  nor  in  Berlin  nor 
in  Paris  was  there  aught  of  consideration  for  the  patient  between 
the  diagnosis  and  the  autopsy ;  when  studies  in  pathology  were 
carried  on  to  the  exclusion  of  studies  in  therapeutics;  when  the 
nihilistic  sentiment  was  so  strong  that  that  keen  observer,  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  said  once  at  a  lecture  at  the  Harvard 
Medical  School :  '  Diagnosis  is  important :  pathological  anatomy  is 
important;  but  the  post  mortem  examination  doesn't  tell  you  any 
more  about  the  cause  of  disease  than  the  ruins  of  the  fireworks  on 
the  5th  of  July  tell,  you  of  the  eloquence  of  the  Fourth.' 
"  In  the  early  70's  Dr.  Rice  was  already  making  his  reports  on 
impurities  and  adulterations  in  chemicals,  and  pointing  out  ways 
and  means  to  remedy  this  defect.  As  we  go  along  a  little  farther 
we  see  during  the  early  8o's  an  enormous  development  of  specialties 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  day  of  the  practising  physician  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close.  Surgery  was  coming  into  unexplored  and  hitherto 
deemed  inaccessible  regions.  The  narrow  specialties  were  develop- 
ing very  rapidly,  and  the  physician  seemed  to  be  a  thing  of  the 
past.  What  has  been  the  result  to  the  student  of  therapeutics?  In 
the  first  place  it  has  given  the  man — this  physician-specialist — a 
greater  and  larger  opportunity  to  know  of  remedial  agents,  and  in 
the  second  place  we  are  largely  indebted  to  therapeutics  in  every 
