220  Pharmaceutical  Degrees  in  America.     { Am'May^i905.arm' 
before  1870.  Prof.  Edward  Parrish,  in  referring  to  this  distinction 
in  1 87 1,  said  :  "  A  degree  of  Doctor  of  Pharmacy  seems  appropriate 
to  place  our  profession  on  a  par  with  those  of  medicine  and  of 
dentistry. 
"  This  has  already  been  granted  to  a  few  distinguished  pharma- 
cists by  the  Maryland  College  of  Pharmacy,  but  would  seem  well 
suited  to  designate  all  graduates  in  pharmacy  who  have  devoted 
themselves  creditably  to  the  legitimate  practice  of  their  profession 
for  a  term  of  years.  A  title  of  this  kind  would  hardly  seem  preten- 
tious if  held  in  reserve  by  the  college  until  their  graduates  had 
attained  a  well-recognized  professional  standing  and  the  prospect  of 
attaining  it  would  be  an  honorable  incentive  to  professional  effort." 
The  special  committee  appointed  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  in  1874  to  consider  the  subject  of 
conferring  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Pharmacy  on  the  graduates  of 
the  College,  in  their  report,  deprecated  the  adoption  of  the  pro- 
posed title,  and  enumerated,  among  other  reasons,  the  fact  that 
pharmacy  and  the  practice  of  medicine  being  so  closely  connected, 
the  title  would  tend  to  confusion.  The  committee  recommended 
that  the  College  adhere  to  the  time-honored  practice  of  conferring 
the  title  of  Graduate  in  Pharmacy,  but  also  recommended  the  con- 
ferring of  an  additional  degree,  not  designated,  on  graduates  of  the 
College  who,  by  pursuing  some  original  investigations,  had  demon- 
strated their  fitness  for  the  same.  This  latter  recommendation  was 
acted  on  the  following  year,  when  the  degree  of  Master  in  Phar- 
macy, in  course,  was  provided  for.  Eleven  years  later,  on  May  4, 
1886,  the  degree  of  Master  in  Pharmacy  i(  Honoris  Causa  "  was 
instituted,  and  in  the  following  year,  February  1,  1 887,  the  Phila- 
delphia College  of  Pharmacy  conferred  its  first  honorary  degree. 
Recurring  now  for  a  few  moments  to  the  now  generally  accepted 
propriety  of  exhibiting  the  evidence  of  having  attended  a  college  of 
pharmacy,  it  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  as  late  as  1874  this  prac- 
tice was  deprecated  by  a  writer  in,  and  also  the  editor  of,  the  Chi- 
cago Pliarmacist,  one  of  the  predecessors  of  the  Western  Druggist. 
Prof.  John  M.  Maisch,  the  editor  of  the  American  Journal  of 
Pharmacy,  contended,  in  opposition,  that  the  number  of  graduates 
from  colleges  of  pharmacy  had  increased  to  such  an  extent  and  the 
opportunities  for  attending  schools  of  this  kind  had  become  so 
numerous  that  there  was  little  or  no  reason  why  graduates  from 
