Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1901. 
Editorial. 
305 
Concerning  your  last  letter,  I*  want  to  say  now  that  I  beg  you  to  give  up  the 
idea  of  making  any  sort  of  display  of  me  in  print.  The  older  I  get,  the  more 
distasteful  is  this  to  me.  I  cannot  prevent  any  one  from  acting  on  their  own 
will  and  judgment,  but  when  I  have  a  chance  of  giving  my  views  before  the 
thing  is  done,  I  trust  that  my  wishes  will  be  fulfilled.  My  life,  before  I  came 
to  this  country,  passed  along  in  so  uneventful  a  manner  that  the  only  land- 
marks in  it  that  I  could  point  to,  are  fully  covered  by  the  biographical  sketch 
in  the  American  Druggist  some  seven  or  eight  years  ago.  Since  I  am  here, 
and  since  I  hold  my  present  position  in  the  Department  of  Public  Charities 
(now  about  thirty-four  and  one-half  years)  my  connection  with  pharmaceutical 
journalism  and  pharmacopceial  matters  are,  I  believe,  sufficiently  well  known 
not  to  require  announcement.  Whatever  is  to  be  said  about  me,  let  it  be  said 
after  I  am  gone.  Any  sort  of  display  about  me,  particularly  now,  would 
be  surely  taken  by  some  persons  as  a  personal  advertisement  on  the  eve  of  the 
convention.    I  am  sorry  that  Dr.  has  seen  fit  to  put  such  a  puff 
into  ,  yet  I  cannot  blame  him,  as  he  did  not  know  how  I  feel 
about  it. 
Hoping  that  you  will  drop  the  idea  and  comply  with  my  wishes,  I  remain 
your  sincere  friend, 
Charges  Rice. 
A  close  study  of  the  life  of  Dr.  Rice  will  show  that  he  was 
pre-eminently  a  man  of  character.  One  could  not  but  see  in  him  the 
personification  of  all  the  noble  traits.  He,  unlike  other  men, 
apparently  had  no  chart  or  compass.  He  simply  acted  and  lived 
as  seemed  best,  and  what  he  did  was  right.  He  was  so  unselfish  in 
all  his  actions  that  he  amazes  us,  and  was  with  difficulty  sometimes 
understood.  In  1885,  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Unofficial 
Formulas  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  he  had 
worked  out  a  plan  whereby  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Formulary, 
which  he  and  others  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York  had  made  so  suc- 
cessful, was  to  be  turned  over — for  the  sake  of  the  larger  field  of 
usefulness  and  greater  good — to  become  the  property  of  the  Ameri- 
can Pharmaceutical  Association.  The  discussion  on  this  subject 
(see  Proc,  1885,  pp.  558-564  and  574-575)  is  most  interesting  read- 
ing. The  proposition  was  at  first  refused,  and  then  through  Mr. 
Ebert  the  matter  was  again  brought  up  and  Dr.  Rice  spoke  as  fol- 
lows. Those  who  knew  Dr.  Rice  can  doubtless  see  him  and  hear 
him,  because  the  tenor  of  his  remarks  on  this  occasion  were  charac- 
teristic uf  him  on  all  occasions.    He  said  : 
Mr.  President : — Certainly,  yesterday  it  appeared  to  me  that  there  was  a 
peculiar  reluctance,  to  accept  the  gift  freely  offered,  but  I  am  happy  to  say 
that  reluctance  due  to  a  misunderstanding  has  been  overcome.  This  may  have 
occurred  in  readingithe  report  hastily.    We  had  in  substance  offered  you  the 
