54 
Pharmacy  and  Medicine. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    February,  1905. 
The  science  and  art  of  medicine  demands  a  mastery  of  the  sciences 
of  biology,  anatomy,  physiology,  chemistry  and  pathology,  The 
natural  course  of  disease,  injury,  and  the  consequences  of  deformity, 
comprise  a  phase  of  medicine  not  here  necessary  to  be  elaborated, 
but,  qualification,  in  the  broad  sense,  to  as  successfully  as  possible 
restore  to  a  common  equilibrium,  these  manifold  afflictions,  is  pre- 
eminently  the  high  function  and  weighty  responsibility  of  medicine. 
In  a  word,  pharmacognosy  constitutes  the  truly  science  side  of 
the  profession  of  pharmacy.  Its  profundity  and  scope,  and  the  pos- 
session of  its  practical  qualifications ,  its  art,  can  only  belong  to  those 
learned  followers  who  devote  their  entire  talents  to  its  demands. 
It  is  impossible  for  a  physician  to  possess  himself  of  the  specific 
ability  belonging  to  the  science  and  art  of  pharmacy,  just  as  it  is 
alike  impossible  for  a  pharmacist  to  acquire  the  specific  ability  of 
the  physician.  Thus  is  distinctly  seen  the  individuality ,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  respective  professions,  also  their  mutual  interdependence. 
To  repeat,  in  the  prescription  are  embodied  the  points  of  contact 
and  parallel  action  establishing  that  common  relationship  which 
constitutes  a  bond  of  union  between  the  sciences  of  pharmacy  and 
medicine  and  their  art,  without  which  neither  can  achieve  the  com- 
mon good  for  mankind  which  should  be  a  certainty. 
The  prescription  is  evidence  and  proof  of  professional  qualification. 
Its  formulation  attests  the  ability  of  the  physician ;  its  compound- 
ing that  of  the  pharmacist.  'Tis  the  crystalline  product  of  the  two 
professions,  and  is  proof  of  the  existence  of  that  relationship  which 
is  the  inevitable  resultant  of  these  two  great  callings  of  life. 
What,  therefore,  if  these  expressed  generalizations  be  true,  can  be 
achieved,  if  there  is  not  throughly  established,  upon  a  practical 
basis,  that  inherently  essential  relationship  between  pharmacy  and 
medicine,  which  natural  law  determines  ? 
There  must  be  qualification  on  the  part  of  each.  This  implies  a 
higher  standard  of  education  than  has  hitherto  obtained  !  Pharmacy 
and  medicine  demand  a  higher  degree  of  scholarship,  for  without  it 
the  possibilities  of  each  cannot  be  hoped  for. 
This  fact  is  perhaps  best  demonstrated  by  the  prescription  as  it  is 
usually  discovered.  That  the  prescription  is  distressingly  empirical 
does  not  need  demonstration.  This  criticism  does  not  include  what, 
for  self-evident  reasons  at  the  present,  is  to  be  regarded  as  normally 
so,  but  what  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  qualification,  inexcusably 
prevalent. 
