Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
February,  1909.  j 
Educational  Advancement. 
55 
spends  in  going  to  college  could  better  be  spent  in  establishing  him- 
self in  his  profession.  That  argument  had  greater  force  in  the 
earlier  history  of  our  country  where  the  development  of  its  resources 
was  so  rapid  and  the  increase  of  its  population  so  great.  It  loses  its 
value,  however,  as  the  country  is  filled  up  and  the  competition  for 
existence  becomes  keener.  The  man  who  succeeds  to-day  in  any 
profession  is  he  who  combines,  with  executive  ability,  aptness  for 
the  profession  he  has  chosen  and  skill  in  carrying  it  into  effect.  A 
general  education  of  high  grade  cannot  fail  to  endow  every  one  who 
has  it  with  an  advantage  over  the  one  who  has  not,  and  this  is  true 
aside  from  any  practical  application  of  the  branches  studied  to  the 
profession  which  is  to  be  followed.  It  would  be  a  sad  day,  indeed, 
for  the  progress  of  medicine  and  pharmacy  if  it  were  argued  that 
those  engaged  in  these  two  great  professions  should  confine  their 
studies,  preliminary  and  otherwise,  to  those  branches  which  bear 
directly  upon  their  professional  activity.  Instead  of  producing  pro- 
fessional men  with  broad  views  and  progressive  ambitions,  we  would 
end  by  producing  narrow  men,  bigots  without  ambition  and  without 
any  adequate  conception  of  the  relations  which  their  profession- bears 
to  other  activities  of  life.  In  the  interests  of  success,  therefore, 
alone,  aside  from  the  other  benefits  which  come  from  a  broad  and 
thorough  training,  we  should  insist  that  the  preliminary  training  of 
our  pharmacists  should  be  greater  and  the  tests  for  admission  to  the 
pharmaceutical  colleges  should  be  raised  to  a  higher  plane. 
One  great  point,  it  seems  to  me,  which  ought  to  be  considered 
is  the  fact  that  there  is  no  enmity  between  the  profession  of  pharmacy 
and  the  profession  of  medicine.  It  is  true  that  it  is  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  draw  a  definite  cleavage  line  between  the  two  profes- 
sions. The  pharmacist  must  in  some  cases  exercise  the  functions 
of  a  physician,  and  the  physician  to  some  extent  those  of  the  pharma- 
cist. I  might  say  that  the  pharmacist  is  a  stationary  physician  and 
the  physician  an  ambulatory  pharmacist.  There  should,  however, 
be  an  understanding  between  the  two  professions  as  to  how  far  each 
should  encroach  upon  the  confines  of  the  other.  It  is  needless  to 
enter  into  an  argument  to  show  that  the  physician  should  carry 
a  pharmaceutical  armament  with  him,  as  it  would  be  needless  to  say 
that  the  pharmacist  should  never  be  permitted  to  dispense  a  remedy 
without  a  physician's  prescription. 
Mutual  benefit,  however,  would  come  to  both  professions  if  the 
great  evil  of  the  patent  medicine  habit  or  the  drug  habit  could  be 
