170  Founding  of  Phila.  College  of  Pharmacy.       |  A^I°3ir'  mY™' 
many  articles  of  interest  and  value  upon  chemical  subjects  begin- 
ning with  1808. 
He  was  in  business  at  25  South  Fourth  Street  in  18 19,  and  as 
early  as  1812  had  advertised  a  course  of  "Evening  lectures  on 
Chemistry"  and  also  "Lectures  on  Theoretical  and  Practical  Phar- 
macy." For  this  latter  course  a  fee  of  twenty  (20)  dollars  was 
charged.  This  course  was  evidently  neither  popular  nor  success- 
ful, for  no  further  reference  is  found  relating  to  it,  although  Mr. 
Cutbush  attained  the  distinction  of  being  appointed  Assistant 
Apothecary  General  in  the  U.  S.  Army  on  August  12,  1814.  The 
duties  of  this  office  must  have  kept  him  busy  in  this  vicinity  for 
in  the  Philadelphia  Directory  of  182 1  he  is  listed  as  "Assistant 
Apothecary  General  of  the  U.  S.  Army,  residing  at  207  South 
Fourth  Street." 
Conditions  in  Pharmacy  at  that  period  had  not  been  satisfactory 
to  many  of  the  medical  practitioners  of  the  period,  nor  to  the  lead- 
ing apothecaries,  as  they  were  then  officially  termed.  The  practice 
of  writing  prescriptions  had  been  established  in  Philadelphia  about 
1765  by  Dr.  John  Morgan,  who,  upon  returning  from  the  com- 
pletion of  his  medical  studies  in  Europe,  had  been  accompanied  by 
an  accomplished  apothecary  from  Great  Britain,  named  Leighton, 
who  brought  with  him  a  large  assortment  of  medicines.  This  first 
prescription  store  in  Philadelphia  did  not  long  survive  the  antago- 
nism of  local  physicians  and  pharmacists,  and  it  is  stated  that  even 
at  the  close  of  the  American  Revolution  there  were  only  three 
medical  practitioners  in  Philadelphia  who  confined  their  practice 
to  prescription  writing. 
An  unsuccessful  attempt  was  made  in  1789  to  interest  Ameri- 
can medical  men  in  the  establishment  of  a  national  Pharmocopceia 
in  which  Dr.  Samuel  Powell  Griffitts,  of  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, took  a  prominent  part. 
Through  ignorance  and  carelessness  certain  abuses  crept  into 
the  early  drug  business  primarily  because  there  was  neither  control 
from  without  nor  inspiration  from  within.  Patent  medicines  be- 
came numerous,  most  of  them  being  founded  upon  the  prescriptions 
of  successful  physicians,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  pre- 
scription was  at  that  time  believed  to  be  a  combination  of  medica- 
ments satisfactory  for  the  relief  of  disease  without  the  necessity 
of  modification  or  alteration  to  suit  the  particular  individual  as  is 
the  scientific  and  approved  practice  today. 
