Am.  jour.  Pharm.  ?     Half  Century  of  Amer.  Pharmacy.  643 
Sept.,  1921.       )  J  J 
its  infancy  in  1871,  has,  during  the  half  century  since  that  time,  as- 
sumed enormous  proportion  in  supplying  the  needs  of  the  average 
dispensing  physician  and  tablets  have  now  become  as  staple  as 
ground  flaxseed.  If  the  tablet  vogue  continues  there  may  be  some 
day  an  automat,  doctors  and  druggists  rolled  into  one,  in  the  form 
of  a  nickel-in-the-slot  machine,  dealing  out  tablets  for  all  sorts  of 
ailments.  Already  around  New  York  tin  boxes  containing  a  well- 
known  brand  of  acetylsalicylic  acid  tablets  are  being  sold  at  news- 
stands. With  the  lessening  of  the  prescription  business  the  pharma- 
cist has  had  to  turn  to  other  means  of  paying  his  constantly  increas- 
ing rent  and  as  a  result,  in  the  cities  at  least,  the  old-fashioned  drug 
store  has  given  place  to  a  handsome  emporium  in  which  the  dis- 
pensing of  medicine  seems  the  least  part  of  the  business.  And  then, 
forsooth !  the  physician,  intentionally  overlooking  the  causes  of  the 
commercialization  of  pharmacy, '  throws  up  his  hands  in  holy  hor- 
ror over  the  modern  drug  store  and  thus  justifies  his  neglect  of  the 
art  of  prescription  writing. 
This  is  the  situation,  but  that  it  is  not  so  gloomy  as  the  pessi- 
mist may  think,  the  presence  of  you  prosperous  gentlemen  at  the 
semi-centennial  of  your  organization  seems  to  attest.  Nor  do  I 
believe  that  your  prosperity  has  been  due  solely  to  the  sale  of  ap- 
ples, of  cameras  and  of  sandwiches.  The  remarkable  growth  of 
schools  of  pharmacy,  including  your  own  fine  institution,  shows 
that  there  still  remains  an  art  of  pharmacy,  a  science  of  pharmacy, 
and  a  profession  of  pharmacy.  Did  I  not  think  so  I  would  con- 
sider that  I  was  obtaining  money  under  false  pretenses  in  accepting 
my  salary  as  teacher,  and  I  would  turn  to  the  business  of  pharmacy 
rather  than  remain  in  the  ranks  of  the  teachers. 
We  have  considered  the  past  and  the  present  of  pharmacy. 
How  about  the  future  of  Pharmacy  ?  I  am  an  optimist  and  can  say 
with  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra : 
"Grow  old  with  me 
The  best  is  yet  to  be," 
and  so  I  have  no  fear  that  the  future  will  see  relegation  of  pharmacy 
to  the  things  of  the  past  along  with  astrology,  alchemy  and  necro- 
mancy. 
That  a  man  of  indifferent  education  and  mediocre  ideals  will 
be  naught  but  a  tradesman  in  pharmacy,  even  as  an  indifferent 
