76 
Pharmacy  and  Chemistry, 
f  Am.'Jour.  Pharm. 
I    February,  1905. 
national  exhibits  in  this  building  had  some  publications  on  the  gen- 
eral educational  work  of  the  respective  country — Germany  excepted. 
It  is  but  natural  that  those  countries  where  the  practice  of  pharmacy 
has  no  marked  characters  of  the  purely  business  feature  (such  as 
patent  medicines,  soda,  cigars,  laundry,  and  the  like)  the  pharmacist 
is  expected  to  comply  with  very  rigid  educational  standards.  In 
this  connection  I  may  state  that  the  gentleman  in  charge  of 
little  Sweden's  exhibit  stated  to  me  that  a  certain  large  pharma- 
ceutical house  of  our  country  extensively  advertised  a  certain  nos- 
trum of  wonderful  medicinal  virtues ;  the  government  authorities 
promptly  took  up  the  matter,  which  ended  Yankee  enterprise  in 
that  chilly  clime.  Nor  must  the  reader  believe  that  lands  where 
one  pharmacy  to  every  20,000  inhabitants  or  more  is  necessarily  a 
veritable  bonanza  for  the  pharmacist ;  for  not  all  people  are  such 
voracious  patent  medicine  consumers  as  the  Americans  and  the 
English.  The  people  are  also  more  addicted  to  the  use  of  the 
homely  herb  of  their  garden,  consequently  the  taking  of  a  little 
bitter  wormwood  tea  takes  the  place  of  patents  among  the  hardy 
Hungarians,  Swedes  and  mountain  dwellers  of  Europe  generally. 
If  we  desire  to  learn  from  any  country,  it  is  from  the  land  of  the 
mother  tongue  and  similar  racial  peculiarities — Great  Britain. 
The  educational  side  of  the  Britisher  is  distinctly  British,  in  that 
all  tests  depend  upon  examinations  by  certain  authorized  bodies  or 
boards.  Any  one  may  be  examined  for  a  degree  before  their 
universities,  if  he  feels  able  to  do  it,  whether  he  studied  in  England 
or  not.  So  is  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  authorized  by  Parliament 
to  conduct  examinations  to  determine  the  fitness  of  a  druggist  to 
practice  his  vocation.  Great  Britain  is  always  derided  in  some 
quarters,  on  account  of  its  excessive  examinations.  It  is  generally 
admitted  by  the  more  advanced  men  in  pharmacy  and  science  that 
a  single  examination,  or  a  number  of  them,  cannot  determine  the 
fitness  of  a  student.  Professor  Remington  emphasizes  this  in  a 
recent  paper  published  in  this  Journal.  The  examination  is  very 
good  for  many  mediocre  memorizers,  though  not  exceptionally 
brilliant  in  the  class-room ;  a  certain  race  is  always  good  at  the  so- 
called  final,  as  I  have  noticed. 
Professor  Searby,  himself  a  graduate  of  old  England's  most  noted 
school,  that  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  has  recently  championed 
higher  requirements  for  entry  to  the  American  College.    We  may, 
