534 
Druggists,  Pharmacists  etc. 
(  Am.  Jocr.  Pharm 
■  \     Dec.  1, 1871. 
method,  the  question  would  arise  whether  the  examinations  should  be 
varied,  or  the  kind  of  diploma  be  dependent  entirely  on  the  nature  of 
the  shop  training,  all  the  students  attending  the  same  course  and  being 
subjected  to  the  same  examinations.  It  would  certainly  be  more  prac- 
ticable to  change  our  existing  policy  if,  in  drawing  the  line  so  as  to 
exclude  a  certain  class,  we  could  offer  them  an  alternative  which,  in 
many  instances,  would  so  exactly  meet  the  case.  It  must  be  admitted, 
however,  that  our  experience  has  by  no  means  justified  the  assump- 
tion that  students  from  stores  classified  as  wholesale,  are  necessarily 
less  able  to  meet  the  requirements  of  our  Examining  Boards,  even  in 
regard  to  questions  pharmaceutical,  than  those  from  numerous  stores 
which  are  most  emphatically  retail.  In  determining  which  diploma  a 
candidate  should  be  entitled  to  receive,  experience  would  doubtless 
soon  dictate  a  wise  policy ;  but  a  delicate  question  would  soon  arise 
as  to  whether  the  two  diplomas  should  take  equal  rank,  or  whether 
that  awarded  to  the  wholesale  druggist  should  be  subordinate  to  that 
which  attests  the  qualifications  of  the  graduate  in  pharmacy  ;  in  either 
case  it  would  be  obviously  proper  to  make  the  graduate  druggist  eligi- 
ble to  the  diploma  in  pharmacy,  after  a  suitable  lapse  of  time,  on  pro- 
ducing evidence  of  experience  in  dispensing. 
Having  adverted  to  one  of  the  modes  suggested  for  solving  the 
question  before  us,  I  next  proceed  to  state  that  which  commends  itself 
to  those  who  would  avoid  the  confusion  anticipated  from  creating  two 
distinct  classes  in  the  alumni  of  the  College,  namely,  to  supply  as 
thorough  a  practical  course  in  pharmacy  as  our  present  circumstances 
will  allow,  and  to  increase  and  develope  this  until  it  shall  include  suf- 
ficient practice  on  the  part  of  the  students  from  wholesale  stores  to 
remove  all  objections  to  the  issue  to  them  of  the  same  diploma  as  to 
those  who  have  had  the  required  practice  in  a  dispensing  store. 
It  will  be  granted  that  immense  advantages  are  gained  by  system- 
atic instruction  over  the  irregular  practice  of  a  shop,  dependent  upon 
the  accidents  of  business.  Where  the  processes  are  arranged  and 
directed  to  the  single  end  of  giving  the  greatest  amount  of  profitable 
practice  and  instruction,  more  can  be  taught  in  a  few  months  than 
would  be  acquired  in  years  of  experience  in  an  ordinary  shop.  Yet 
it  will  not  do  to  assert  that  such  laboratory  practice  can  be  a  com- 
plete substitute  for  the  daily  contact  with  physicians  and  the  public 
which  the  dispensing  counter  affords ;  nor  is  it  proposed  as  a  substi- 
tute for  this,  only  as  furnishing  such  parts  of  a  pharmaceutical  educa- 
