Am.  Jour.  Pharro.\ 
February,  1901.  J 
Pharmacy  Legislation. 
67 
Everywhere  there  are  signs  of  activity  among  the  pharmaceutical 
fraternity,  new  associations  are  forming,  and  old  ones  are  becoming 
more  active.  Renewed  interest  is  being  taken  in  pressing  for  State 
and  National  legislation  tending  to  relieve  pharmacy  from  unduly 
burdensome  taxation,  and  in  movements  tending  to  secure  fairer 
and  more  profitable  trade  relations  between  the  manufacturing  and 
jobbing  interests  on  the  one  hand  and  the  dispensing  and  retail 
interests  on  the  other. 
THE  INCREASING  ACTIVITY  IN  PHARMACY  LEGISLATION. 
One  of  <the  most  important  features  of  this  awakening  of  the  phar- 
maceutical body  politic  is  the  gradual  evolution,  through  the  joint 
efforts  of  the  courts  and  legislatures,  of  a  rational  system  of  phar- 
maceutical jurisprudence ;  one  which  shall  protect  the  public  inter- 
est withoat  imposing  upon  the  natural  and  constitutional  rights  of 
the  pharmacist,  and  which  shall  secure  to  the  latter  the  opportunity 
of  exercising  his  calling  with  the  hope  of  reasonable  profit,  without 
infringing  upon  the  rights  of  the  public. 
To  secure  this  devoutly  wished-for  consummation,  pharmacists 
must  be  active,  not  passive,  factors.  Plato  says  "  that  the  punish- 
ment which  the  wise  suffer  who  refuse  to  take  part  in  the  govern- 
ment is  to  live  under  the  government  of  worse  men."  The  penalty 
imposed  upon  pharmacists  if  they  fail  to  take  a  proper  interest  in 
the  enactment  of  pharmacy  legislation  is  that  they  must  live  under 
laws  enacted  by  men  much  less  competent  than  themselves  to  pre- 
pare such  legislation. 
THE  OBSTACLES  TO  PHARMACY  LEGISLATION  MAINLY  FROM 
PHARMACISTS. 
While  we  have  heard  much  concerning  the  opposition  of  legisla- 
tors to  the  enactment  of  appropriate  pharmacy  laws,  it  is  the  writer's 
opinion, based  upon  actual  experience  in  advocating  measures  before 
the  General  Assembly,  that  the  prime  difficulty  in  the  way  of  phar- 
macy legislation  is  the  active  or  passive  opposition  of  pharmacists 
themselves. 
This  opposition  is  of  three  kinds: 
(1)  The  opposition  of  those  who,  without  knowing  why,  stupidly 
imagine  that  the  law  will  in  some  way  interfere  with  their  business, 
or  who,  being  conscious  of  their  own  unfitness,  or  that  they  are 
