Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
February,  1921.  y 
Pharmaceutical  Research. 
133 
compounded  and  dispensed  the  prescriptions  of  the  physician  priests. 
The  Israelites  evidently  held  the  apothecaries  in  high  esteem,  as  the 
Biblical  records  contain  a  number  of  references  to  them  and  their 
work.  The  holy  anointing  oil  and  the  incense  were  both  directed  to 
be  "compounded  after  the  art  of  the  apothecary."  To  Eleazar  of 
the  priesthood,  the  son  of  Aaron,  was  entrusted  the  services  and 
duties  at  that  time  performed  by  the  apothecary.  So  we  as  phar- 
macists can  take  just  pride  in  that  we  are  engaged  in  a  most  ancient 
and  honored  calling. 
The  student  of  the  history  of  pharmacy  is  soon  brought  to  real- 
ize that  pharmacy  has  played  no  small  part  in  the  world's  progress 
and  that  pharmacists  have  made  many  valuable  contributions  to  the 
knowledge  of  materia  medica,  botany,  chemistry  and  the  allied  sci- 
ences, and  that  some  of  these,  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  mankind, 
are  constantly  employed  in  the  professions  and  industries.  He  like- 
wise becomes  painfully  aware  of  the  fact  that  ofttimes  the  credit  is 
given  to,  or  taken  by,  other  branches  of  science.  The  writers  of  En- 
cyclopoedia  articles  and  similar  works  of  reference  are  specially 
faulty  in  their  failure  to  recognize  the  importance  of  the  contribu- 
tions of  the  unobtrusive  workers  in  science  despite  the  services  of 
incalculable  value  that  these  have  rendered  to  mankind.  To  most  of 
these  authors  and  compilers  the  activities  of  the  warrior,  the  states- 
man, or  politician,  so  often  destructive  of  the  world's  progress,  and 
even  of  the  novelist  seem  to  be  of  paramount  importance  for  per- 
petuation. Since  the  influence  of  pharmacy  has  been  quite  com- 
monly overlooked  by  these  general  historians,  it  remains  as  one  of 
the  duties  of  pharmacists  to  see  that  the  scattered  data  and  facts 
concerning  the  lives  and  contributions  of  pharmacists  are  collected, 
preserved  and  published,  so  that  it  shall  be  established  beyond  per- 
adventure  as  to  whom  credit  is  justly  due. 
Throughout  the  medieval  period,  and  especially  that  portion 
which  is  referred  to  as  the  age  of  the  alchemist,  the  contributions  to 
the  sciences  were  largely  made  by  the  investigators  in  medicine  and 
the  apothecaries  who  were  aiming  to  improve  the  methods  of  prepar- 
ing their  remedies  and  of  discovering  new  substances  of  therapeutic 
value. 
Among  the  English-speaking  nations  there  has  been  unfortun- 
ately a  too  apparent  disposition  to  disparage  the  work  of  the  apothe- 
caries, and  during  the  Fourteenth  Century  they  were  commonly  re- 
