394 
Pharmacy  in  Prussia,  etc. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Phakm. 
t     Sept.  1,1871. 
and  police  authorities,  and  in  criminal  cases  for  the  courts.  These  en- 
gagements, the  supervision  and  activity  in  the  officine  and  laboratory, 
the  instruction  of  the  apprentices  and  the  necessary  attention  to  the 
pharmaceutical  and  general  scientific  literature,  tax  his  time  and 
ability,  and  require  his  mental  and  manual  labor.  Not  unfrequently 
is  he  also  elected  to  fill  municipal  and  other  ofiices,  like  those  of 
trustee,  juror,  councilman,  etc.,  which,  in  Germany,  are  positions  of 
honor  and  trust,  without  any  pecuniary  compensation. 
For  these  reasons  and  by  virtue  of  the  high  standard  of  professional 
character  and  morals  in  trade  and  pursuit,  the  apothecary,  like  the 
physician,  enjoys  the  consideration  and  regard  of  the  public. 
The  relation  between  the  apothecary  and  his  assistants  is  that  of 
colleagues  based  upon  mutual  esteem.  "  Since  there  are  a  great 
number  of  men  who  have  passed  the  State's  examination,  but  do  not 
possess  the  means  to  buy  a  pharmacy,  and  have  to  wait  years  to  obtain 
perhaps  the  concession  for  the  establishment  of  a  new  one,  and  who, 
consequently,  are  obliged  to  serve  as  assistants,  there  is  in  German 
officines  a  staff  of  well-educated,  experienced  and  pains-taking  assist- 
ants. This  fact  contributes  not  a  little  to  the  high  status  of  pharmacy 
and  to  the  deserved  regard  and  confidence  which  the  pharmacist  en- 
joys in  Germany."  (Agnew.)  It  also  gives  a  clue  to  the  cause  why  so 
many  German  pharmacists  have  emigrated*  and  established  themselves 
in  foreign  countries  with  less  restricted  or  free  trade,  mainly  in 
Switzerland,  Russia  and  the  United  States,  and  more  or  less  in  the 
Central  and  South  American  countries,  and  in  the  coast  countries 
and  islands  of  Asia  and  Africa.  Although  frequently  separated  by 
language  and  dialect,  they  generally  win  the  satisfaction  and  re- 
spect of  their  employers  and  of  the  public,  and  are  successful  in  their 
pursuit.  "  In  Russia,  according  to  Mr.  Agnew's  cited  statement,  by 
some  extraordinary  anomaly,  German  apothecaries  are  permitted  to 
practice  to  the  exclusion  even  of  natives,  unless  they  have  been  edu- 
cated in  a  German  University. "f 
*  For  some  time  past  there  has  been  considerable  decrease  in  the  emigra- 
tion of  German  pharmaceutists  to  the  United  States. 
t  This  statement  is  not  quite  correct,  and  may  derive  its  erroneous  origin  in 
the  fact,  that  comparatively  a  great  number  of  apothecaries  and  most  of  the 
pharmaceutical  professors  at  the  universities  in  European  Russia  are  Germans 
and  that  the  latter  lecture  in  the  German  language.  It  is  also  remarkable 
that  the  best  and  most  widely  distributed  pharmaceutical  journal  of  the  Rus- 
sian Empire  is  edited  by  Germans  and  published  in  the  German  language. 
