Aloctober,%!m'}    Education  and  Legislation  in  Pharmacy.  475 
pharmacists  bears  a  rational  relation  to  the  number  of  drug  stores. 
Not  one  in  which  there  are  not  too  many  registered  pharmacists 
ready  to  open  up  new  drug  stores  as  soon  as  they  have  a  chance. 
These  conditions  should  be  radically  changed. 
Compulsory  graduation  in  pharmacy  as  a  requirement  for  full 
license  would  of  course  serve  as  a  check  upon  the  increase  of  drug 
stores.  Nothing  else  will.  At  the  same  time  that  is  also  the  very 
thing  required  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  public  and  the  medical 
profession.  But  a  large  number  of  druggists  are  apparently  as  afraid 
of  so-called  "  prerequisite  laws  "  as  women  are  of  mice.  They  must 
be  blind  as  well  as  over-timid. 
Am  I  My  Brother's  Keeper  ? — We  all  suffer  from  the  reproach 
which  our  low  standards  of  education  invite.  The  fact  that  the 
membership  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  consists 
of  pharmacists  of  a  high  order  does  not  suffice  to  protect  the  pro- 
fession as  a  whole  from  that  reproach.  The  public  and  the  medical 
profession  will  judge  us  by  our  laws  and  by  the  attitude  of  druggists 
in  general  toward  better  education.  That  our  State  pharmaceutical 
associations  repeatedly  vote  down  every  proposition  to  increase  the 
educational  requirements  in  any  degree  brings  odium  upon  us  all. 
We  are  all  bound  up  together.  The  rule  "  every  one  for  himself  " 
will  not  do.  You  are  your  brother's  keeper  whether  you  will  or  not. 
The  Relations  between  Physicians  and  Pharmacists. — Pharmacy  as 
a  distinct  occupation  will  never  cease  to  exist.  Scientific  pharmacy 
is  indispensable  to  scientific  medicine.  Physicians  and  pharmacists 
who  do  not  thoroughly  recognize  that  truth  have  not  studied  the 
question. 
For  a  generation  the  physicians  have  been  weaned  away  from  the 
pharmacists.  They  forgot  that  all  really  tried  and  useful  drugs  are 
either  already  in  the  pharmacopoeias  or  sure  to  be  included  in  them 
as  soon  as  definitely  known  or  recognized.  There  were  several 
reasons  why  physicians  so  extensively  prescribed  ready-made  reme- 
dies and  combinations  of  remedies  instead  of  writing  prescriptions 
for  these  same  remedies  in  the  well-known  officially  recognized  forms 
and  ordering  their  own  proportions  and  combinations,  leaving  the 
task  of  dispensing  and  compounding  to  the  pharmacist.  You  know 
the  whole  story  well. 
But  we  should  never  forget  that  the  chief  reason  why  so  many 
physicians  deserted  the  pharmacists  was  defective  education.  Ignorant 
