Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1919. 
Secret — Private — Personal. 
341 
The  machinery  is  rattling  somewhere.  It  needs  tightening  up 
and  adjustment  and  at  least  one  new  part.  It  should  be  made  as  a 
stated  duty  for  the  new  president  or  else  for  the  chairman  of  the 
council  to  see  that  there  be  established  the  lacking  coordination  and 
continuity  of  service  that  is  essential  to  the  success  of  its  under- 
takings. With  a  multitude  of  committees  and  its  numerous  activi- 
ties a  strong  guiding  hand  is  needed  that  will  insure  continuous 
action  and  stop  the  delay  and  misspent  energy.  Either  the  power 
of  the  executive  officer,  the  president,  must  be  extended  by  the 
by-laws  or  an  executive  committee  created  with  the  necessary 
power. 
G.  M.  B. 
SECRET — PRIVATE — PERSONAL. 
(No.  II — Private.) 
By  John  Uri  Lloyd,  Phar.M., 
cincinnati,  0. 
Private. — Comey  with  this  word,  phases  of  definition  in  both 
pharmacy  and  medicine,  apart  from  those  recorded  by  almost  any 
recognized  authority.  In  this  writer's  opinion,  the  artificial  con- 
struction localized  in  both  the  medical  profession's  code  and  the 
by-laws  of  the  art  of  pharmacy  needs  be  relieved  from  any  touch 
of  opprobrium  when  the  word  "  private "  is  properly  employed. 
Its  use,  as  given  by  nearly  every  recognized  authority,  shatters  no 
professional  or  commercial  ideal  that  recognizes  the  right  of  anyone 
to  a  privilege  in  ambition's  advancement  of  both  self  and  others,  in 
science,  profession  or  art. 
The  "  odium  "  attached  to  the  word  private  in  both  medicine  and 
pharmacy  is  well  deserved  from  one  view,  i.  e.,  when.it  concerns  the 
impostor,  and  in  this  direction  should  not  be  abandoned.  But  no 
authority,  whether  independently  legal,  ethical  or  lexicographical, 
attaches  to  the  word  a  blanket  stigma. 
Note  a  few  definitions  of  the  word,  as  recorded  by  Webster : 
Private  a. — Belonging  to,  or  concerning,  an  individual  person,  company, 
or  interest;  peculiar  to  one's  self;  unconnected  with  others,  personal;  one's 
