Am\uJo°^ t  So?01' }      Pharmacists  and  Pharmacopoeia.  389 
THE  PHARMACISTS  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 
PHARMACOPOEIA* 
By  George  M.  Beringer. 
Dr.  Henry  Leffmann  has  presented  for  your  consideration  the 
fact  that  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States  originally  prepared 
and  published  "  by  authority  of  the  medical  societies  and  colleges," 
has  gradually,  through  the  medium  of  the  decennial  conventions  for 
revision  to  which  pharmaceutical  societies  were  invited  to  send  dele- 
gates, become  the  joint  work  of  both  physicians  and  pharmacists. 
In  the  later  revisions  the  influence  of  the  pharmacists  has  become  so 
prominent  that  he  accuses  the  medical  profession  of  neglecting  its 
duty  and  surrendering  the  Pharmacopoeia  to  the  pharmacists  who 
have  by  this  bloodless  victory  "  captured  "  the  book  and  now  control 
and  decide  its  character. 
Without  gainsaying  the  statements  presented  by  Dr.  Leffmann, 
I  desire  to  present  a  picture  taken  from  a  different  viewpoint.  I 
will  venture  to  advance  as  a  preliminary  proposition,  that  the 
present  condition  and  control  is  but  the  result  of  the  natural  evo- 
lution of  pharmacy  as  a  distinct  branch  of  medicine  and  is  due  to 
the  progress  and  changed  conditions  in  the  practice  of  medicine 
that  has  taken  place  since  1820,  when  Dr.  Lyman  Spaulding  edited 
the  first  edition  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States. 
The  student  of  the  history  of  pharmacy  knows  that  during  the 
period  of  the  early  settlements  and  throughout  the  colonial  period 
in  America,  pharmacy  was  not  practised  as  a  distinct  art  and  calling. 
The  early  "  apothecary  shops  "  were  mainly  the  dispensaries  of 
physicians  for  supplying  their  patients  and  the  mixing  was  usually 
entrusted  to  an  apprentice  or  beginner  in  the  study  of  medicine. 
It  was  about  1765,  that  Dr.  John  Morgan  introduced  in  Philadelphia 
the  practice  of  writing  prescriptions,  or,  as  he  styled  it,  "  the  regu- 
lar mode  of  practicing  physic."  He  argued  that  "  the  very  different 
employments  of  physician,  surgeon,  and  apothecary  should  not  be 
followed  by  any  one  man  ;  they  certainly  require  different  talents. 
Let  each  cultivate  his  respective  branch  apart,  the  physician,  surgeon, 
apothecary,  etc. ;  the  knowledge  of  medicine  will  then  be  daily  im- 
proved, and  it  may  be  practised  with  greater  accuracy  and  skill." 
*  Presented  before  the  Philadelphia  County  Medical  Society,  March  24, 
1909. 
