604  Pharmacy  as  a  Hobby.  {Am'£pt' wl™' 
chronic  affections,  masquerading-  for  years  under  false  colors  as  to 
its  real  value ;  for  both  its  alleged  therapeutic  properties  and  its 
flavor  were  due  to  other  drugs  used  in  its  combinations ;  now  almost 
entirely  discredited  as  a  remedy  of  any  value. 
Hydrastis  and  sanguinaria,  the  yellow  and  red  "  puccoon  "  of  the 
aboriginal  American,  who  used  them  for  pigments  as  well  as  for 
their  medicinal  value. 
Boneset,  tansy,  pennyroyal,  horehound,  all  of  these  conjure  up 
visions  of  old-fashioned  attics  with  bunches  of  dried  herbs  sus- 
pended from  the  rafters. 
Fucus  and  chondrus  bring  with  them  the  tang  of  the  sea  and  of 
rock-bound  weed-strewn  coasts,  where  surging  billows  want  the  mar- 
iner that  Poseidon  never  sleeps. 
With  these  thoughts  singing  through  one's  mind,  how  can  anyone 
say  that  pharmacy  is  decadent,  or  that  it  holds  no  interest  for  its 
devotee.  There  is  much  and  great  work  yet  to  be  done  and  dis- 
coveries will  yet  be  made  bringing  to  their  authors  fame  and  pos- 
sibly fortune. 
Each  day's  work  becomes  a  miracle  to  him  who  looks  with  seeing 
eyes  into  the  graduate  or  mortar,  test-tube  or  flask,  and  to  him  who 
with  interested  mind  draws  near  to  nature's  manifestations  of  her 
innumerable  laws,  immutable  and  sometimes  inexplicable.  Who  is 
there  that  has  not  time  to  add  his  quota  to  the  knowledge  off  his 
time  and  of  his  calling,  be  it  ever  so  little.  Each  day  some  new  fact 
may  be  learned  and  recorded ;  untrodden  paths  of  experimentation 
lie  waiting  for  generations  of  pharmacists  yet  to  come.  Shall  we 
now  pass  them  by  and  leave  to  those  of  the  future  our  responsibili- 
ties in  the  present? 
The  studying  of  colloids,  of  the  sera  and  vaccines  with  their 
fascinating  theories  and  illimitable  possibilities;  these  are  subjects 
in  which  any  pharmacist  of  the  present  generation  may  be  as  well 
posted  as  the  foremost  savant  of  the  time,  for  they  are  of  such  recent 
development  that  one  may  easily  start  at  the  beginning. 
If  pharmacy  sleeps  and  is  not  yet  aroused  to  her  possibilities,  it 
is  time  for  her  to  awake,  and  this  awakening  will  come,  when  it  does 
come,  through  a  realization  of  the  infinitely  interesting  possibilities 
for  development  along  lines  of  combined  scientific  and  practical 
value.  Let  us  all  join  hands  in  building  more  strongly  for  the 
future,  by  inculcating  in  our  younger  workers  that  abiding  love  for 
and  interest  in  pharmacy  which  shall  outlast  all  ephemeral  consid- 
