The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-10-30

L u.
otory of the need of State school of Phar-
macy;
Portland. Oct. 90, 1894.
| To the Editor of the PRESS:
| That School of Pharmacy is of more con-
| Germ to the general public than might an
pear at first thought. Within the remem-
| berance of our Oldest citizens. it was
thought sufficient. Tor the aspirant for med
ical honor, that he study with a physician
a few years and then hang out his sign
as full dedged NJ. D.
| To day our best schools of medicine re-
| quire four years to complete the course
with skilled specialists at the head of every
department. coupled with long experience
| in hospital, before that coveted degree
/ is conferred. What about the pharama lists
| on whom the physicians depend for remi-
| dies, their weapons to fight back diseases
and death, restore health and prolong life?
| And the creation of which is resting mora
and more upon the pharmacists? The
| United States Pharmacopoeia, the official
| guide and authority on medicine in this
country, is decennialy revised, and from
| 1910 when the first assistance was rendered
| by pharmacists, thst element has increased
in each succeeding decade until in the last
| committee of revision, numbering twenty
| SIX members. sixteen represented pharmacy.
Eminent British authority pronounced it
"a volume of which the Americans NAV be
| justly proud and may well be taken as a
guide in the production of our own stand
ard work. A higher degree of prepara
| ton, broader field of scholarship is to be
| demanded of.the coming, pharmacist. From
the ranks of the compaIativly poor boys,
! who are compelled to leaya school between
twelve and fifteen comes asmajority of the
apprentices, to:whom we look for the fu-
| ture progress, nin medicinal science. What
are his chances to get an education to meet
those responsibilities? Long hours, hard
work and poor pay confront him, what time
he has to himself is too limited for him to
| make extensive progress in study and lay a
| good foundation, his ability is dwarfed and
success restricted. Turning to the college
Of pharmacy he finds srsastwo courses of at
least six months eachnofor The support of
| which the drug trade il appealed I'd for an
endowment fund SO that the college of
Pharmacy can be placed upon purely edu-
oational basis instead of being conducted
for the money they Make The lectures
and work, in many of these colleges, are
arranged to accommodate those who hold:sit-
uations in some store where they spend the
| balance of their time. Can one do more
than cram his mind with unassimilated and
| undigested facts from ''quiz ccmpends''
designed to teachi6Re ia1the shortest pos
siDle time SO that theysoRn pass the exami-
| nations at the college and before the state
boards? 1t is knowledge steadily acquired
and not crammed which will afford a firm
basis for further acqui1 ements. Contrast
his condition with the German aspirant to
pharmaceutical honors. Educated in sump-
tuous preparatory schools, in all the
sciences akin to pharmacy, he serves six
years an apprentice and assistant un-
der master who guides him in his studies
This completed he is compelled to enter a
university, fully equipped, where the sala-
ries of the professors and assistants are
paid by he state. Two years of constant
toll in the laboraory and lecture rooms are
req uired before he can come up for the final
examination for the title of apotheke.
Germany has revolutionized the science
and art of medicine. II was an apofhecary
in small German town that discovered
the first alkaloid, morphine. Since that
discovery, the number of alkaloids have
steadily increased. 1t is not essential that
every pharmacist should be a skilled synthet-
ic and analytical chemist. Some must be,
and all must know some thing of the meth
DDS of constructing the medicine the physi
clan uses and be able to ascertain by
proper chemical processes that they are
what they profess to be, if they meet sue
cesfully the responsibility put upon them.
The State College, at Orono. is maintained
at public expense for the public good. With
the addition of a professor in the theory
ard practice of pharmacy her teaching
force will be complete. Her laboratories
are well equipped, all from the public
purse. She can and ought to be, to the
pharmacists of Maine what the German
Universities are to her apotheke. That col
leee is to establish.that which-perhaps one
honorable exoeption-does not exist in
these United States-a four years course
in pharmacy. not only to train but educate
the coming pharmacists of Maine. And the
portland druggists are still pushing the
State School of Pharmacy idea'' because
they wish to have set before them the uni