Aj;uiuary)i!)T3U'  }    Retail  Pharmacist  and  Pure  Drugs.  5 
in  determining  their  location  and  thus  be  enabled  to  direct  their 
patients  to  them.  But  of  course  no  business  alliance  should  exist 
between  physicians  and  pharmacists  in  such  cases.  In  this  way 
the  mere  traders,  whether  doing  a  small  or  a  big  business,  would 
in  time  become  differentiated  from  the  class  of  true  pharmacists, 
even  though  they  did  call  themselves  druggists;  and  the  two  pro- 
fessions would  be  mutually  protected  to  a  greater  degree  than  prob- 
ably obtains  at  present.  While  some  physicians  might  hesitate 
in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  the  question  is  too  important  to  be  neg- 
lected, and  we  should  not  wait  until  there  is  a  separation  by  phar- 
macy laws  of  the  true  apothecary  or  professional  pharmacist  from 
the  mere  vender  of  drugs.  But  laws  or  no  laws,  the  most  reliable 
pharmacist  will  always  be  the  one  who  has  the  ability  and  con- 
scientious scruples  to  take  the  initiative  himself  in  keeping  his  stock 
up  to  standard. 
Until  recently,  we  may  say,  and  this  is  particularly  apparent 
if  we  turn  over  the  pages  of  a  book  like  that  of  DragendorfFs  4 
with  the  thousands  of  remedies  there  recorded,  our  principal  object 
in  the  study  of  medicinal  substances  seems  largely  to  have  been  to 
collect  in  one  place  all  the  remedies  that  have  been  used,  thus  seem- 
ing to  indicate  that  we  were  afraid  of  losing  something  that  might 
prove  ultimately  useful  to  mankind.  This  period  is  contempora- 
neous in  the  United  States  with  the  time  when  the  great  compila- 
tions or  dispensatories  were  popular,  these  being  useful  to  the 
pharmacist  and  suggestive  to  the  physician.  Furthermore,  our 
knowledge  of  drugs,  apart  from  certain  tests  for  identity,  has  con- 
sisted largely  of  unconfirmed  statements  regarding  their  value,  so 
that  we  may  say  that  the  most  useless  things,  like  the  pebbles,  have 
been  too  frequently  polished,  while  our  knowledge  of  the  most 
valuable  drugs,  like  the  uncut  diamonds,  remains  bedimmed.  With 
the  exception  of  a  comparatively  few  of  the  vegetable  drugs  our 
knowledge  regarding  their  active  principles  and  specific  action  is 
more  or  less  indefinite,  to  say  the  least,  and  hence  they  are  for  the 
most  part  without  quantitative  standards,  even  o>f  purity. 
Owing  to  the  fact  that  there  are  many  factors  which  cause  a 
variation  in  the  constituents  of  drugs,  such  as  for  example  those 
which  modify  the  character  and  quantity  of  the  constituents  de- 
pending on  how  and  when  the  drugs  are  gathered  and  how  they 
4  Dragendorff,  George :  Die  Heilpflanzen,  i8g8. 
