AnseJp°tur'i92iarm '}     High-Lights  in  History  of  Phila.  C.  of  Phar.  605 
institution — although  on  April  5,  1821,  the  University  did,  indeed, 
proceed  so  far  as  to  confer  the  honorary  degree  of  master  of  pharm- 
acy upon  sixteen  apothecaries  of  Philadelphia,  the  first  grant  of  a 
pharmaceutical  degree  in  this  country. 
The  College  was  founded  in  historic  Carpenter's  Hall,  a  build- 
ing occupied  in  1774  by  the  Provincial  Assembly  which  recommended 
a  general  Congress  of  all  the  American  Colonies,  which  Congress  also 
met  in  this  hall,  and  within  it  inaugurated  those  measures  which, 
after  the  perils  of  the  Revolution,  terminated  so  favorably  for  civil 
liberty  in  America  and  throughout  the  world;  and  so,  within  this 
hall  the  "sixty-eight  druggists  and  apothecaries"  met  and  wrote  a 
new  declaration  of  independence :  That  pharmaceutical  education 
shall  be  of  pharmacists,  by  pharmacists  and  for  the  public  wel- 
fare. 
Prior  to  1821,  "in  this  new  country  with  its  sparse  population 
and  vast  territorial  extent — its  few  small  but  growing  cities  scat- 
tered along  the  seaboard — the  occasion  had  scarcely  arisen  to  put 
into  practice  the  obvious  educational  means  fitted  to  meet  these  re- 
quirements ;  but  now  the  time  had  evidently  come.  Every  intelligent 
druggist  and  apothecary  felt  that  the  instruction  which  might  be 
suitable  for  the  student  preparing  himself  for  the  duties  of  the 
physician  would  be  only  partially  fitted  for  one  who  was  to  assume 
the  widely  different  responsibilities  of  the  drug  store  and  dispen- 
sary." ( Historical  Memoirs  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy, 
Edward  Parrish,  Amer.  Journ.  Pharm.,  1869-97.) 
Furthermore,  the  founders  of  the  College  realized  that  their 
responsibilities  were  not  only  to  provide  pharmaceutical  education, 
but  also  to  protect  the  public  against  the  adulteration  and  misbrand- 
ing of  drugs;  thus,  a*t  the  second  meeting  of  the  College  (March  13, 
1821),  a  committee  appointed  at  the  first  meeting  reported  that 
abuses  had  crept  into  the  drug  and  apothecary  business ;  instances 
had  occurred  of  deteriorated  drugs  being  introduced  into  the  shops 
and  valuable  remedies  in  daily  use  being  adulterated  and  sold  of  in- 
ferior quality  and  that  such  abuses  were  attributable  in  part  "to  want 
of  proper  pharmacological  information  on  the  part  of  some  drug- 
gists and  apothecaries  who  vend  and  of  physicians  who  buy,"  and  it 
was  recommended,  with  the  establishment  of  the  College,  that  its 
"attention  be  constantly  directed  to  the  quality  of  articles  brought  into 
the  drug  market,  subjects  relating  to  the  business  and  its  objects  be 
