548         Constructive  Public  Service  in  Pharmacy.       {A  August  ST™' 
matically  many  of  the  inconsistencies  and  evils  of  the  present  prac- 
tice will  disappear  for  all  time. 
More  and  more  pharmacists  each  year  are  fitting  themselves  for 
wider  public  service  by  taking  special  courses  in  bacteriology,  clinical 
chemistry,  technical  analysis,  and  sanitation,  and  are  becoming  valu- 
able aids  in  public  health  work  and  analysts  and  experts  in  their  re- 
spective communities.  The  stimulation  in  this  direction  has  been 
especially  noticeable  since  the  close  of  the  war,  for  it  was  during 
that  period  that  many  came  to  realize  the  value  of  scientific  training 
and  the  opportunities  which  are  open  to  one  who  qualifies  along  such 
cognate  lines  of  study. 
The  interdependence  of  pharmacy  and  medicine  was  never  more 
in  evidence  than  at  present,  for  with  the  introduction  of  biological 
preparations,  including  sera  and  vaccines,  and  the  discovery  of  new 
methods  of  preparing  and  standardizing  long  used  drugs,  the  physi- 
cian is  more  than  ever  compelled  to  rely  upon  pharmacy  for  dis- 
tinctive and  important  scientific  assistance.  Pharmacy  and  medicine 
have  common  battles  to  fight  in  combating  the  manufacture  and  sale 
of  worthless  nostrums,  and  in  educating  the  public  along  correct 
scientific  lines  of  hygiene  and  health  conservation. 
They  are  co-sharers,  under  the  law,  of  certain  compelling  re- 
sponsibilities which  have  to  do  with  the  control,  regulation  and  dis- 
tribution of  drugs  which  are  known  to  be  habit-forming,  and  of  alco- 
holic preparations.  It  is  a  gratifying  fact  that  the  large  majority  of 
the  members  of  both  professions  are  true  to  their  trust  and  worthy 
of  the  confidence  reposed  in  them. 
The  opportunities  for  advancement,  therefore,  on  the  part  of  a 
great  institution  like  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  and  Sci- 
ence, which  serves  pharmacy  primarily  and  medicine  indirectly,  are 
convincing  in  their  evident  necessity.  Among  the  more  important 
phases  of  this  advanced  work  are  the  following: 
1.  The  conducting  of  popular  scientific  lecture  courses,  in  which 
the  public  shall  not  only  be  given  correct  concepts  of  the  scientific 
facts  of  importance  in  connection  with  pharmacy  and  the  allied  sci- 
ences, but  the  combating  of  error  and  superstition,  which  will  also 
be  an  important  part  of  this  constructive  work. 
2.  The  development  of  research  service  to  the  medical  pro- 
fession.   Medicine  is  already  indebted  to  pharmacy  for  much  con- 
