484  Druggists,  Pharmacists,  etc.  {^\iTi,im^''' 
lations.  Standard  specimens  are  exhibited,  their  modes  of  preserva- 
tion and  uses  described,  and  a  scientific  and  practical  interest  im- 
parted to  them  which  cannot  fail  to  make  of  the  student  a  more 
intelligent,  appreciative  and  competent  dealer  in  them. 
The  chemical  course,  though  most  obviously  useful  to  the  manu- 
facturing chemist  and  pharmacist,  has  a  practical  interest  to  the 
druggist  also ;  in  fact  the  leading  principles  of  this  science  are  so  in- 
terwoven with  every  branch  of  trade  and  manufactures  as  to  have 
been  incorporated  into  most  general  schemes  of  liberal  education. 
The  druggist  needs  chemistry  especially,  to  open  to  his  view  the 
composition  and  properties  of  drugs,  and  to  place  within  his  reach  the 
means  of  testing  their  purity  and  of  judging  of  their  quality. 
Nor  are  the  lectures  on  pharmacy,  though  especially  adapted  to 
the  manufacturing  and  dispensing  pharmacist,  without  real  utility 
and  importance  to  the  druggist.  To  judge  of  the  identity,  excel- 
lence or  inferiority  of  pharmaceutical  preparations  in  which  he 
deals  requires  knowledge  which  is  closely  connected  with  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  they  arc  made  ;  these  processes,  too,  are  very  liable 
to  come  into  use  in  the  course  of  his  business,  and  the  few  prepara- 
tions he  has  occasion  to  make  will  call  for  scarcely  less  skill  than  is 
demanded  in  the  manufacturing  laboratory  and  dispensing  store. 
Moreover  the  close  relations  of  all  these  classes  as  coadjutors  in  the 
general  drug  trade,  make  it  eminently  fitting  that  their  scientific 
training  should  be  substantially  the  same. 
Yet  granting  that  our  colleges  should  be  open  to  all,  the  question 
still  remains  as  to  who  should  be  entitled  to  compete  for  their  honors. 
By  the  time-honored  regulations  of  this  college  the  line  has  been 
drawn  so  as  to  exclude  those  whose  practical  training  embraces  one 
special  department  only.  No  importer,  drug  broker,  drug  miller, 
herbalist  or  perfumer,  who  is  not  at  the  same  time  a  practicing  drug- 
gist or  pharmacist,  would  lay  claim  to  send  an  apprentice  here  with  a 
view  to  obtain  a  diploma ;  yet  we  have  never  drawn  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  jobber  and  retailer,  who  we  regard  as  jointly  participants 
in  the  general  traffic  in  drugs  and  medicines. 
Many  of  the  members  of  this  college,  including  some  of  its  founders, 
have  originally  been  wholesale  dealers.  Some  of  its  leading  members, 
starting  as  apothecaries,  have  extended  their  trade  with  the  growth  of 
the  city  and  the  natural  increase  of  their  capital,  till  they  have  be- 
come large  importers,  jobbers  or  manufacturers,  and  yet  these  are 
