Am.  jour.  Pharm.  >     Half  Century  of  Amer.  Pharmacy.  641 
Sept.,  1921.  S 
Ontario  who  founded  your  college;  blood  brothers  of  the  Popes, 
the  Hastings  and  the  Finlays  of  far-off  New  Orleans.  Of  these 
worthies  the  one  whom  we  of  the  United  States  hold  in  grateful 
remembrance  was  your  William  Saunders  who,  in  1871,  was  active 
in  manufacturing  pharmacy;  a  constant  exemplar  of  the  fact  that 
a  pharmacist  is  an  educated  man.  Twenty-fifth  president  of  the 
American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  Dr.  Saunders  has  always 
seemed  to  us  of  the  United  States,  the  personification  of  Canadian 
Pharmacy.  Others  there  are,  to  be  sure,  to  whom  we  turn  with 
like  esteem,  but  since  some  of  them  are  present  tonight,  I  will  spare 
their  feelings  by  permitting  the  name  of  Dr.  Saunders  to  stand 
alone. 
From  the  apothecaries  of  1871  let  us  turn  to  the  pharmacy  of 
the  same  period.  In  these  days  the  art  of  dispensing  meant  more 
than  it  does  in  the  drug  store  of  192 1.  The  spreading  of  plasters  was 
an  every-day  occurrence,  and  apothecaries  took  pride  in  showing 
their  skill  in  preparing  those  of  unusual  shape.  Machine-spread  por- 
ous plasters  brought  out  in  1847  ^>r  one  patent  medicine  manufac- 
turer, were  still  novelties  from  the  dispensing  standpoint  in  1871. 
Pills  were  made  by  hand  by  the  druggists  in  quantity  lots.  Even 
thirty-seven  years  ago,  when  I  began  my  pharmaceutical  apprentice- 
ship, we  made  all  of  the  pills  (such  as  compound  cathartic  and 
quinine)  that  were  sold  over  the  counter;  the  only  coated  pills  we 
dispensed  being  proprietaries  or  special  lines  prescribed  by  physi- 
cians because  of  the  advertising  activity  of  their  manufacturers. 
Compressed  tablets,  introduced  into  American  Pharmacy  by  Jacob 
Dunton,  of  Philadelphia,  during  the  late  sixties,  were  being  pushed 
by  a  few  manufacturers  but  were  dispensed  by  apothecaries  only 
upon  the  prescription  of  the  physician  who  specified  them.  Tinc- 
tures were  the  staple  form  of  drug  medication;  fluid  extracts  being 
then  new  and  of  lesser  importance.  Mixtures  were  prescribed 
largely  and  were  freshly  prepared  by  the  apothecary.  Malodorous 
milk  of  asafcetida  and  its  sinister  sister,  Dewee's  Carminative,  were 
in  great  demand,  and  a  fine  job  it  was  to  make  the  former  when 
one,  all  dressed  up,  on  one's  Sunday  off,  came  back  to  relieve  the 
employer  or  the  brother  clerk  oyer  the  dinner  hour.  Emulsions  of 
fixed  oil  were  in  their  infancy  a*  few  stray  recipes  for  cod  liver  oil 
cream  being  found  in  the  literature  of  1870-71.  Elixirs  were  then 
in  their  first  flush  of  popularity,  with  those  dispensing  them  little 
