Ambec"ri92Larm' }   Pharmacy  and  Pre-Medical  Schools.  837 
Fifth. — The  arrangement  is  a  safeguard  against  medical  cults. 
I  can  conceive  of  no  atmosphere  so  hostile  to  the  development 
of  a  medical  cult  as  that  of  a  college  of  pharmacy;  I  would  not  ex- 
cept from  this  statement  even  the  halls  of  a  medical  school.  Medi- 
cal science  is  still  based  largely  on  theory;  pharmacy  is  cold,  indis- 
putable facts  and  the  man  who  has  become  accustomed  to  handling 
facts  does  not  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  weird  speculations  of  the  fad- 
dists. 
There  is  one  advantage  that  a  college  of  Arts  has  over  one  of  ' 
Pharmacy  which  appeals  to  me  strongly;  and  that  is  the  larger  va- 
riety of  secondary  subjects  offered  to  the  student.  Out  oL  a  re- 
quired total  of  sixty  semester  hours  the  Council  on  Education  in- 
sists on  definite  assignments  for  only  thirty-four  hours.  In  other 
words,  nearly  half  of  the  student's  course  may  be  arranged  to  suit 
himself.  If  he  be  interested  in  history,  or  geology,  or  philosophy, 
he  has  a  certain  amount  of  time  which  can  be  devoted  to  these  scho- 
lastic amusements.  The  Pharmaceutical  school,  however,  offers  him 
but  litttle  in  the  way  of  diversion,,  pharmacy,  mathematics  and  Latin 
is  about  the  sum  total. 
While,  in  all  candor,  we  must  acknowledge  this  is  a  real  deficit, 
I  feel  that  there  are  certain  superiorities  of  the  school  of  pharmacy 
and  science  which  offset  it. 
Of  the  three  fundamental  subjects  whose  necessity  is  recognized 
by  every  one,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  most  essential  is  chem- 
istry. It  must  be  remembered  today  that  in  most  medical  schools  there 
is  absolutely  no  instruction  in  the  subject  of  general  chemistry ;  it  is 
as  much  taken  for  granted  that  the  student  knows  this  subject  as  it 
is  that  he  knows  how  to  add  and  multiply  (to  be  sure,  I  have  met 
medical  students,  not  a  few,  who  were  unable  to  work  simple  prob- 
lems in  percentage,  but,  they  are  laboring  under  a  great  disadvan- 
tage) .  A  fair  knowledge  of  general  chemistry  is  an  absolutely  neces- 
sary antecedent  to  physiological  chemistry,  and  the  better  the  stu- 
dent is  grounded  in  chemistry  the  easier  it  will  be  for  him  to  gain  a 
clear  apprehension  of  pharmacology,  physiology  and  many  other 
branches. 
I  do  not  think  that  any  one  can  seriously  question  the  greater 
thoroughness  of  the  chemical  instruction  given  at  a  college  of  phar- 
macy and  science  compared  to  that  of  a  college  of  arts  and  science. 
In  the  first  place,  if  we  compare,  as  typical,  the  number  of  hours 
