Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ] 
June,  1875.  X 
Editorial. 
glale  communicated  the  results  of  his  experiments  on  the  action  of  ferments  in 
closed  vessels. 
Dr.  DeVrij  communicated  to  the  meeting  held  April  7th  his  investigations  on 
a  crystallizable  resin  obtained  from  Podocarpus  cupressina,  and  reported  on  the  good 
results  obtained  with  the  mixed  alkaloids  as  obtained  from  red  Peruvian  bark.  M. 
Limousin  read  a  note  on  medicated  gelatin  (see  page  266  of  this  Journal)  ;  M. 
Vigier  one  on  the  use  of  glycerin  in  making  pills  and  medicated  pastes  (see  page 
265),  and  M.  Bourgoin  reported  on  a  new  process  for  obtaining  perchloride  oi 
ethylene. 
EDITORIAL  DEPARTMENT. 
Botany  as  a  Branch  of  Pharmaceutical  Education. — The  May  number 
of  the  Canadian  "  Pharmaceutical  Journal "  contains  a  paper  headed,  "  Is  Botany 
Essential  to  a  Pharmaceutical  Education  ?"  The  author,  near  the  close  of  his  paper, 
makes  some  general  remarks,  from  which  we  extract  the  following : 
"  He  who  quibbles  about  the  necessity  of  learning  this  or  that,  when  both  maybe 
shown  to  be  advantageous  if  not  necessary,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  possess  that  am- 
bition which  is  a  necessary  factor  in  a  successful  career.  Legal  limitations  are  not 
the  bounds  above  which  we  must  not  rise;  they  form  the  level  below  which  we  must 
not  descend.  We  do  not  call  a  man  necessarily  honorable  merely  because  he  con- 
forms to  the  civil  and  criminal  laws  of  the  land,  nor  can  we  admire  that  pharmacist 
who  grudgingly  toes  the  mark  of  legal  qualifications,  and  who  deprecates  any  fur- 
ther advance  as  unnecessary  and  a  waste  of  time.  If  our  ambition  incites  to  nothing 
more  than  we  can  attain  with  ease,  we  will  fail  in  reaching  anything  worthy  of  the 
name  of  knowledge.  If  we  would  improve,  it  must  be  by  raising  an  ideal  above  our 
present  attainment,  and  which  will  be  worthy  of  our  highest  efforts.'' 
We  have  repeatedly  had  occasion  to  allude,  directly  and  indirectly,  to  the  neces- 
sity for  pharmacists  of  an  acquaintance  with  botany.  That  this  necessity  is  appre- 
ciated may  be  judged  from  various  indications.  Lectures  on  botany  are  now  delivered 
in  connection  with  botanical  excursions  in  most  colleges  of  pharmacy  in  the  United 
States  ;  and,  though  an  attendance  at  such  excursions  is  not  made  obligatory,  the 
number  of  students  devoting  a  portion  of  their  leisure  time  to  this  study  annually 
increases.  In  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  the  botanical  class  is  more  thani 
double  the  number  of  what  it  was  a  few  years  ago ;  and  we  have  been  informed  that 
it  is  similar  in  other  institutions.  The  plants  with  which  students  may  become  ac- 
quainted under  the  prevailing  circumstances,  are  those  belonging  to  the  flora  of  their 
locality  5  plants  from  other  regions  of  our  country  or  from  other  continents  are 
rarely  seen  by  them  except  as  dried  specimens  or  cultivated  for  ornamental  pur- 
poses. In  most  of  our  large  American  cities  the  need  of  a  well-conducted  botanical 
garden  is  felt,  but  few  are  as  yet  the  fortunate  possessors  of  such  an  institution^ 
However,  even  in  this  respect,  progress  is  manifest.  We  remember,  with  pleasure^ 
our  visit  to  Shaw's  Garden  at  St.  Louis,  where,  by  a  liberal  minded  citizen,  unusual 
