538  Needs  of  the  Business  Pharmacist.  {^vimbe£hi905m" 
protection  of  the  public,  but  to  protect  the  pharmacist  against  un- 
justifiable prosecution  under  pure  food  and  drug  laws.  The  Com- 
mittee on  the  Drug  Market  has  already  started  this  work  consequent 
upon  prosecutions  instituted  by  the  Massachusetts  State  officials  for 
selling  unofficial  products  which  did  not  conform  to  their  arbitrary 
standards.  Unless  we  take  a  more  active  interest  in  questions  of 
this  kind,  about  the  only  work  of  scientific  import  of  direct  pharma- 
ceutical interest  left  for  us  to  do  will  be  to  furnish  aid  in  the  revision 
of  future  editions  of  the  pharmacopoeia. 
THE  DUTY  OF  THE  PHARMACIST. 
The  powers  of  the  Committee  on  the  Drug  Market  should  be 
enlarged,  and  while  keeping  a  watchful  eye  to  detect  variations  from 
established  standards  of  purity  in  drugs  and  chemicals,  its  work 
might  well  be  extended  to  prevent  the  sale  of  many  of  the  utterly 
fraudulent  products  offered  to  the  general  public  to-day.  We  secure 
special  privileges  on  the  sole  ground  that  the  public  needs  protec- 
tion from  inexpert  dealers.  Is  it,  not,  therefore,  part  of  our  duty  to 
protect  the  public  from  the  impositions  of  those  who  seek  to  exploit 
fraudulently  the  latest  achievements  in  medicine  or  science  ?  The 
legal  part  may  be  left  to  the  properly  constituted  authorities,  but 
the  exposure  of  such  is  properly  part  of  our  work.  It  should  not 
be  left,  as  it  mainly  is,  to  newspaper  and  magazine  editors  in  search 
of  sensations.  The  scientific  portion  of  the  work  belongs  to  this 
section,  the  rest  would  form  part  of  the  work  of  our  newly  estab- 
lished Committee  on  Publicity.  By  agitation  of  this  kind  we  do  not 
compromise  our  dignity  to  any  degree,  but  we  do  show  that  the 
pharmacist  is  a  person  who  has  as  definite  a  sphere  of  action  as  the 
physician  or  the  chemist.  We  should  seek  not  to  pose  as  scientists 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  but  as  experts  in  everything  pertain- 
ing to  drugs  and  medicines.  More  we  do  not  need  as  pharmacists, 
by  less  we  would  fail  to  do  our  whole  duty  to  the  public. 
By  establishing  our  position  in  this  way,  we  should  be  in  a  position 
to  aid  the  agitation,  already  started  in  some  quarters,  for  representa- 
tion upon  our  State  Boards  of  Health  and  upon  food  and  dairy 
commissions,  and,  incidentally,  aid  in  the  control  of  the  proprietary 
medicine  business,  which  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  worst  evils 
confronting  pharmacy.  Pharmacists  have  in  this  country  oppor- 
tunities presented  which  pharmacists  of  no  other  country  possess, 
