A™'ctober^9oi!m" }     American  Pharmaceutical  Association.  487 
direction.  Then,  if  his  categorical  answers  show  that  he  has  actually  done 
enough  to  justify  the  hope  that  he  may  possibly  know  enough  to  be  recognized 
as  a  pharmacist,  give  him  an  examination.  But  the  Boards  of  Pharmacy  never 
ask  a  candidate  whether  or  not  he  has  ever  pursued  any  course  of  study,  or 
received  any  instruction,  or  done  any  work  along  the  lines  upon  which  the 
examination  is  conducted.  They  do  ask  the  candidate  if  he  has  attended  or 
graduated  from  any  college  of  pharmacy.  If  he  answers  "  yes"  then  they  feel 
in  duty  bound  to  punish  him  with  a  more  perplexing  examination.  If  he  says 
"no,"  then  they  give  him  a  milder  examination;  but  they  never  refuse  to 
examine  a  candidate  who  may  be  obliged  to  confess  beforehand  that  he  never 
studied  chemistry,  or  materia  medica,  or  pharmacy  in  all  his  life.  You  might 
think  that  their  object  is  to  effectually  convince  the  young  man  he  ought  not 
to  insult  the  examiners  by  asking  for  an  examination  upon  matters  about 
which  he  ought  to  know  that  he  is  totally  ignorant ;  but  many  of  these  candi- 
dates pass,  become  registered  pharmacists,  and  are  later  called  upon  by  the 
energetic  friends  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  and  invited  to 
become  members  of  this  body. 
Let  us  think.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  men  refuse  to  join  our  Associa- 
tion ?  Or  that  they  join  one  year  and  drop  out  the  next  year?  Or  that  they 
do  not  participate  actively  in  our  work  if  they  do  become  members  ? 
At  its  last  annual  meeting  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  to  its 
everlasting  credit,  adopted,  without  a  dissenting  vote,  a  draft  of  a  "model 
pharmacy  law"  the  most  important  feature  of  which  was  the  requirement  that 
no  person  should  hereafter  be  admitted  to  the  rank  of  a  registered  pharmacist 
unless  he  has  graduated  from  a  pharmaceutical  school.  Will  not  the  Associa- 
tion now  go  one  step  further  and  fix  some  kind  of  an  educational  qualification 
or  standard  of  technical  training  for  membership.  We  cannot  consistently  do 
less.  Let  us  remember  that  the  old  membership  which  has  made  this  Associa- 
tion what  it  is  must  pass  away.  Let  us  provide  for  the  future  of  our  dearly 
beloved  Association  by  seeing  to  it  that  its  coming  membership  shall  be  such 
as  to  preserve  and  improve  it. 
The  strenuous  method  of  increasing  our  membership  in  numbers  is  perhaps 
a  good  thing  for  the  new  members  as  well  as  for  the  present  needs  of  our 
treasury  ;  but  let  us  henceforth  particularly  strive  to  enlist  into  our  ranks  as 
many  as  possible  of  the  men  who  may  increase  the  usefulness,  influence  and 
good  name  of  our  Association  in  the  scientific  direction. 
Then  will  we  have  more  than  thirty  papers  in  ten  years  from  those  of  our 
members  who  are  not  engaged  in  teaching  or  in  manufacturing. 
I  may  not  attempt  any  review  of  important  discoveries  during  the  past  year 
in  the  sciences  most  intimately  related  to  pharmacy.  It  is,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  forbidden  the  Chairman  of  this  Section.  Yet  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
calling  your  attention  to  the  possible  if  not  probable  solution  of  one  of  the 
mooted  questions  which  has  puzzled  the  student  of  chemistry  during  recent 
years.  The  gaseous  elements  recently  discovered  in  the  atmosphere,  for  which, 
it  was  said,  no  place  could  be  found  in  the  periodic  system  of  classification, 
seem  to  fit  into  that  system  so  perfectly  as  to  add  new  evidence  to  the  truth  of 
the  periodic  law,  for  neon,  argon,  crypton  and  xenon  would  seem  to  form  one 
family  which  belongs,  as  another  8th  group,  between  the  halogens  and  their 
antipodes,  the  alkali  metals  : 
