72  Relation  of  Pharmacists  and  Physicians.     { ^pebruaryf  1905? 
A  little  information  will  be  given  to  you  from  behind  the  scenes, 
as  it  were,  of  medicine,  as  it  will  enable  you  to  understand  why  a 
spirit  of  therapeutic  nihilism  occasionally  manifests  itself. 
At  the  last  session  of  the  State  Board  of  Medical  Examiners  a 
question  was  asked  that  inquired  for  the  evidence  of  the  possession 
of  the  knowledge  of  a  fundamental  principle,  without  which  many 
diseases  cannot  possibly  be  understood,  although  their  symptoms 
can  be  memorized. 
Memorized  and  repeated,  but  not  understood !  please  observe,  and, 
consequently,  not  properly  and  intelligently  treated  even  if  only  with 
pure  air,  sunlight,  food  and  rest. 
The  question  was :  discuss  symbiosis  with  special  reference  to 
pathogenesis.  It  is  perhaps  permissible  for  me  to  explain  that  some 
disease-producing  organisms  require  oxygen  for  their  activity,  and 
the  exercise  of  their  morbid  powers,  and  that  if  such  organisms 
enter  the  body,  they  will  be  inert  if  oxygen  is  not  available. 
There  are  other  organisms,  also  disease-producing,  which  thrive 
and  exert  their  disease-producing  powers  in  the  absence  of  oxygen, 
and,  as  these  so-called  germs  in  nature  are  frequently  associated,  it 
is  easy  to  understand  that  if  the  non-oxygen  microbes  grow,  and  in 
their  vital  activity  evolve  from  the  tissues  oxygen,  how  the  viru- 
lent oxygen-demanding  germ  will  thereby  be  supplied  with  the 
necessary  environment  for  its  activity  and  result  in  disease. 
Thus  symbiosis  renders  comprehensible  how,  respectively,  oxygen- 
and  non-oxygen-requiring  germs  may  or  may  not  afflict  the  human 
economy  with  diseases  like  tetanus,  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria,  etc. 
It  cannot  be  denied  by  any  one,  except  those  who  are  inade- 
quately educated,  that  medicines  and  drugs,  those  means  supplied 
by  an  all-wise  Creator,  which  also  similarly  affect  the  cells  of  the 
human  body,  will  be,  when  intelligently  administered,  proven  to  be 
a  vital  necessity  for  the  proper  treatment,  relief  and  cure  of  disease. 
Pharmacy,  therefore,  instead  of  becoming  obsolete  and  useless,  I 
affirm,  with  all  the  emphasis  at  command,  will  be  still  more  strongly 
demanded  than  ever  before,  and  just  as  soon  as  pharmacy  and 
medicine  will  only  admit  to  their  ranks  those  who  are  adequately 
educated,  this  one  great  and  undeniable  fact  of  existence  will  be  an 
unquestioned  reality.  The  time  has  come  not  to  dispense  with  our 
respective  professions,  but  with  those  who  are  not  competent  and 
fit  to  be  identified  with  them. 
