262 
Editorial. 
/Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
<•      May,  1919. 
added  responsibilities  will  come  improved  opportunities  for  ad- 
vancement. 
Throughout  the  civilized  world,  the  medical  profession  as  a  body 
generally  commands  respect  and  confidence  and  in  the  readjustment 
of  industrial,  social  and  political  conditions  that  is  now  in  process, 
medicine  should  assume  its  full  responsibility  and  a  position  of 
active  leadership. 
^Modern  medical  practice  differentiates  the  duties  of  the  physi- 
cian, the  surgeon,  the  dentist,  the  veterinary  doctor  and  the  phar- 
macist. Each  of  these  have  a  distinct  professional  field  and  perform 
separate  and  necessary  services  to  society.  Society  relies  upon 
each  of  these  branches  and  is  dependent  upon  each  for  faithful 
performance  of  duty  and,  despite  the  false  ideas  held  by  some,  they 
are  interdependent  upon  each  other. 
Each  of  these  branches  of  medical  practice  is  based  upon 
a  opllegiate  education  in  the  sciences  that,  with  the  granting  of  a 
professional  degree,  assumes  that  the  standing  and  future  actions 
will  be  ethical  and  with  proper  regard  for  the  professional  status 
of  each  other  and  the  progress  and  elevation  of  all.  Yet  none  of 
these  branches  of  medical  practice  have  been  free  from  severe  criti- 
cism because  of  the  continuous  and  flagrant  breaches  of  professional- 
ism. The  commercial  spirit  has  dominated  them  all  to  such  an 
extent  that  only  too  often  have  professional  ideals  become  merely 
a  secondary  consideration. 
They  are  all  honeycombed  by  false  practices  and  jealousies  that 
are  foreign  to  their  codes  of  ethics.  Questionable  cults,  quackery 
and  chicanery  have  been  engrafted  upon  medicine  and  fake  reme- 
dies and  "  cure  alls"  of  the  vilest  type  and  the  numerous  queer  side 
lines  have  queered  pharmacy.  The  misrepresentations  and  the  mis- 
leading advertisements  of  the  newspapers,  and  even  appearing  in 
some  of  our  so-called  professional  journals,  have  injuriously  affected 
all  branches  of  medical  practice.  It  does  not  make  the  violation  of 
the  code  of  ethics  any  the  less,  nor  does  it  improve  matters  the 
least  that  the  dispensing  physician  lays  the  blame  for  his  unethical 
practices  at  the  door  of  the  counter  prescribing  apothecary  or  that 
the  latter  attempts  to  excuse  himself  because  of  the  former's  errors. 
Such  crimination  and  recrimination  is  a  useless  exhibition  of  a  spirit 
unworthy  of  professional  men  and  these  have  no  influence  whatever 
in  the  correction  of  the  faults  of  either. 
In  the  present  attitude  of  the  world  for  exact  justice,  for  a  read- 
