690 
A  Dream  of  the  Future 
( Am.  Jour,  Pharm. 
I       Oct.,  1921. 
to  take  full  advantage  of  this  opportunity  and  venture  to  put  for- 
ward ideas  which  doubtless  some,  to  quote  Tennyson,  will  consider 
"Wide  of  the  mark  e'en  for  a  madman's  dream." 
DEPRECIATING  PHARMACY. 
My  dream,  for  such  it  may  be  considered,  is  of  a  time  when 
pharmacy  in  this  country  shall,  as  has  so  long  been  the  case  on  the 
Continent,  have  established  itself  as  a  separate  professional  entity — 
a  distinct  career — not  merely  as  a  handmaid  to  medicine,  but  as  a 
calling  collateral,  co-existent  and  interdependent  with  medicine. 
Pharmacy  as  a  distinct  craft,  calling,  or  profession  has  not  yet  ma- 
terialized as  have  medicine,  law,  and  accountancy.  There  is  need 
for  greater  publicity  as  to  the  education  and  qualification  required 
of  the  pharmacist  and  the  functions  pharmacy  has  carried  on  for 
many  years  with  credit  to  itself  and  for  the  public  safety. 
This  need  of  publicity  is  clearly  seen  in  the  much-discussed  Dan- 
gerous Drugs  Act  Regulations.  If  the  functions  of  the  pharmacist 
had  been  more  widely  understood  and  appreciated,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  Home  Office  should  have  suggested  regulations  for  the  sale 
and  dispensing  of  scheduled  poisons  which  are  in  themselves  a  re- 
dundancy and  already  very  largely  covered  by  the  Pharmacy  Acts. 
Let  us  consider  how  pharmacy  is  visualized  by  "the  man  in  the 
street."  In  the  main  I  suppose  one  must  grant  that  he  would  look 
upon  the  pharmacist  as  the  man  who  runs  a  chemist's  shop  or  dis- 
penses medicine  in  a  public  institution,  and  would  consider  that  those 
practicing  this  calling  are  not  to  be  looked  upon  as  men  of  education 
or  of  professional  standing.  There  may  be  some  ground  for  this 
point  of  view;  but  there  are  well-known  exceptions,  and  many  in- 
stances can  be  cited  where  individual  pharmacists  have  achieved 
coveted  positions  in  the  scientific,  archaeological,  polical  and  munici- 
pal worlds.  This  has  been  due  to  the  work  that  has  been  done  by 
many  outside  their  pharmacy  and  not  because  of  their  pharmaceuti- 
cal qualification. 
I  recall  an  instance  where  a  pharmacist  read  a  paper  of  archaeo- 
logical interest  at  a  meeting  of  a  learned  society  after  which  a  lady 
was  heard  to  inquire :  "Who  is  this  Mr.  X  ?"  "Oh,  don't  you  know 
he's  Mr.  X,  the  chemist."  "Dear  me,  I  thought  he  was  a  gentle- 
man." 
In  the  Army,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  war  was  a  great 
