AmApTiir;i905arm"}        Ethical  Pharmaceutical  Practice.  155 
That  pharmaceutical  practice  is  not  and  never  has  been  just  what 
those  most  concerned  would  have  it  be  and  that  it  has  seldom  had 
satisfactory  recompense  may,  I  believe,  be  safely  stated.  This  ad- 
mitted,  and  being  allowed  to  call  this  practice— Pharmacy — the 
question  naturally  follows :  Where  should  pharmacy  be  placed  ? 
The  more  ambitious,  those  who  would  have  it  in  a  position  to 
better  advance  science — another  name  for  Truth — better  serve  the 
afflicted  and  to  better  honor  its  practitioners,  answer  that  it  should, 
in  the  days  to  come,  as  early  as  it  is  fit,  become  a  special  branch  of 
medicine  with  the  same  ethical  laws  controlling  it  that  apply  to  the 
several  specialties  in  medicine.  Then  its  services,  alone,  would  be 
recompensed  and  the  means  of  service  would  be  but  incidental. 
That  would,  indeed,  be  ideal  and  the  attainment  of  the  ideal  is  the 
end !  The  less  radical  and,  possibly,  more  practical,  would  have 
pharmacy  an  allied  profession  to  medicine,  like  dentistry ;  that  would 
be  very  desirable,  but  the  future  of  dentistry,  surely,  is  recognition 
as  such  a  special  branch  of  medicine  !  The  conservative,  non-specu- 
lative, will  say:  Let  it  be  just  what  it  is,  a  double-faced  thing;  a 
profession  in  so  far  as  it  must  be  sufficiently  learned  in  the  sciences 
and  trained  in  its  special  art  to  render  professional  service  in  num- 
berless and  important  requirements ;  a  trade,  whenever  it  must  or 
may  furnish  as  much  or  more  of  whatever  is  demanded,  that  may 
be  safely  supplied  without  special  learning.  Very  practicable  and 
entirely  possible,  but  it  is  not  the  smaller  demands  upon  the  strength 
of  man  that  make  him  most  useful  and  win  for  him  the  greater 
recompense. 
Although  both  practitioner  and  trader,  who  shall  say  the  practi- 
tioner shall  not  be  placed  in  the  light — high,  clean  and  dignified? 
And  the  trader ;  shall  he  not  also  be  in  the  light — high,  clean  and 
dignified  ?  The  same  conscience  should  pervade  both  trade  and  pro- 
fession ;  the  same  desire  to  be  honest  and  truthful ;  to  be  helpful, 
dignified  and  consistent,  should  be  characteristic  of  both — profession 
and  trade.  Being  thus  possessed,  they  could,  indeed,  lt  lie  down  to- 
gether," and  the  one  could  not  detract  from  the  other.  Dissect,  if 
you  will,  carefully,  intelligently,  the  ethics  of  professions  and  the 
ethics  of  trades,  and  when  you  are  ready  to  report  tell  me,  if  you 
can,  wherein  the  organic  differences  may  be  found  ? 
It  does  not  appear  that,  with  respect  to  his  clients  or  customers, 
the  ethics  of  the  pharmacist  are  at  all  different  from  those  of  any 
