68 
Need  of  a  Profession  of  Pharmacy \ 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pnarm 
i    February,  1905 
pharmacist  of  the  future  will  enable  him  to  render  conspicuous 
service,  which  will  go  far  to  lessen  the  time  spent  in  clinically  test- 
ing comparatively  worthless  medicinal  preparations. 
The  need  of  reliable  advisors  on  matters  pharmaceutic,  particu- 
larly in  connection  with  the  so-called  newer  remedies,  is  further 
emphasized  by  a  paper  on  "  The  Trend  of  Modern  Prescription 
Writing,"  by  Dr.  M.  Clayton  Thrush,  recently  read  before  the  Phila- 
delphia County  Medical  Society.9  In  this  paper  the  writer  points 
out  some  of  the  more  evident  shortcomings  in  the  present-day 
methods  of  teaching  pharmacy  in  medical  schools,  and  concludes 
that  "  the  trend  of  modern  prescription  writing  is  in  favor  of  pro- 
prietary preparations  "  largely  because  the  young  practitioner  does 
not  possess  the  requisite  knowledge  to  combine  drugs  or  prepara- 
tions without  forming  unsightly  or  dangerous  compounds. 
This  paper  also  emphasizes  the  inefficiency,  from  a  practical  point 
of  view,  of  attempting  to  teach  the  practice  of  medicine  by  theory 
alone,  and  offers  the  best  possible  arguments  on  the  necessity  and 
importance  of  hospital  experience  to  young  practitioners.  Such  a 
post-graduate  course  of  hospital  training  was  strongly  advised  by 
Dr.  John  H.  Musser  in  his  address  as  President  of  the  American 
Medical  Association.10  The  practical  utility  from  a  pharmacologic 
point  of  view  is  made  somewhat  doubtful,  however,  by  the  assertion 
of  Dr.  O.  T.  Osborne,  who  says:11  "  When  our  graduate  goes  to  a 
hospital  he  begins  to  use  the  hospital  formulae,  and  forgets  entirely 
how  to  write  prescriptions."  This  assertion,  made  by  a  teacher  of 
considerable  experience,  is  unfortunately  too  true,  and  is,  in  a  meas- 
ure at  least,  largely  due  to  the  subordinate  position  occupied  by  the 
hospital  pharmacist. 
How  far  or  how  much  individual  hospital  pharmacists  are  to  be 
blamed  for  the  lack  of  confidence  they  are  able  to  inspire,  I  am  not 
in  a  position  to  say.  Certain  it  is  that  as  a  class,  who  should  have 
every  facility  for  original  observation  and  study,  they  have  con- 
tributed little,  very  little,  to  the  sum  total  of  pharmaceutic 
knowledge. 
That  there  is  a  wide  and  interesting  field  of  work  for  the  hospital 
pharmacist;  that  he  is,  in  fact,  the  logical  beginning  of  a  profession 
of  pharmacy,  and  that  some  of  our  ablest  and  busiest  medical  men 
have  devoted  considerable  thought  to  the  problem,  is  evidenced  by 
the  following  extracts  from  letters  recently  received,  rom  Dr.  Wil. 
