AN  ADDRESS

                TO

DRUGGISTS  AND  APOTHECARIES.

                AND

  THEIR CLERKS AND APPRENTICES.
              ADOPTED BY THE


AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION,
• • •

      AT ITS MEETING IN CINCINNATI, OHIO, JULY, 1854
luMisfcrir &s arter of % Janata.
       P HILADELPHIA.
MERR1HE1V AND THOMPSON, PRINTERS.
      Meichant Street, above Fourth.
            1854. 
 
ADDRESS.
  The American Pharmaceutical Association, deeply impressed
with the importance of adopting some  measure by which  the
present and future apothecaries of this country may be improved
in educational standing, viewed  in reference to the  practice of
their profession, have determined to address their brethren every-
where in our widely extended country, believing that some good
results may arise from the hints they will suggest.
  By an inquiry extended  to all sections of the  Union, it  has
been ascertained that a vital defect exists in the very  budding
process of pharmaceutical education—the apprenticeship.   In
all the pharmaceutical institutions of Europe, where degrees are
granted to apothecaries, the preliminary  service in the shop is a
sine qua non to admission  to the examinations, it being  gene.
rally four years, and in many of them the  attendance  on  lec-
tures follows this term of practical  initiation into the duties of
the shop and laboratory.   In England, where as yet no degree-
granting institution exists among  pharmaceutists, the  appren-
ticeship system is carried out by indenture as in ordinary usage,
so important is this preliminary training conceived to be to  the
education of a pharmaceutical chemist.   In many stores in  the
Atlantic cities north of Virginia, and more  especially in Phila-
delphia, a system of apprenticing  exists, yet it  rarely  happens
that a lad is legally indentured ; the idea of such an instrument
being exceedingly repulsive to most boys who aim at the apothe- 
4
cary business.  In lieu of a legal indenture a feeling of  honor-
bound obligation should exist, equally binding on the part of ap-
prentice and employer, capable of retaining the connection un-
til the obligation is cancelled by termination of service and com-
pletion of  education.  For  want of this tie  between learners
and employers, our country  has been deluged with  incompetent
drug clerks, whose  claim to the important position  they hold or
apply for is based  on a year or two's service in the shop, per-
haps under circumstances illy calculated  to increase their know-
ledge. These clerks in turn become principals, and have the direc-
tion of others—alas ! for the progeny that some of them bring
forth, as ignorance multiplied by ignorance will produce neither
knowledge nor  skill.
  When we investigate the causes of this state of things, it will
be found to arise  primarily in the want of a correct feeling of
the dignity and responsibility of the calling of the apothecary
as a branch of the medical  profession.   The larger number of
those who deal in drugs and medicines do it solely to make mo-
ney ;  they aim at making the most out of the least  outlay of
capital or trouble ; to sell medicines  is their vocation;  and he is
the best clerk who can sell  the most, under whatever circum-
stances it is effected.   To avoid the  necessity of  gaining the re-
quisite knowledge of practical  pharmacy, it is  no uncommon
habit to buy their preparations ready made, except the simpler
ones, and at the lowest price, and the business, thus shorn of its
most interesting department, the application of chemistry to the
conversion  of crude drugs into  medicines, becomes  a mere store
keeping, where the drug clerk is kept putting up and  selling
parcels and bottles of medicines, the preparation of which, and
the beautiful reactions often concerned  in their manufacture, he
is as complete a stranger to as though they did not exist.   Is it
any wonder  then, that, after one or two years service, the  ap-
prentice should fancy that he had learned the business as a seller
of drugs and chemicals, and becoming uneasy at the prospect of
a four years term, breaks the slender connection that binds him
to his  employer, and  starts out as a fledged  clerk!  In these
days of manufacturing pharmaceutists, when most of the nicer
preparations, from Dover's powder  to fluid extracts, are  to be
bought ready made, the temptation to purchase them is great, 
5
even to the qualified principal, who thus saves  himself the re-
sponsibility and trouble attending their manufacture ; but he is
apt to forget the injustice thus done to his proteges, who are thus
deprived of  the important practical knowledge only to be gained
by  becoming familiar  with  the  manipulations they  involve.
Having  abandoned, to a large extent, the making of these pre-
parations, such  apothecaries  are ready but too often to accept
the  agency of the numerous quackeries  that abound  to swell
their sales, and from this are led  into the origination of secret
compounds and become quacks  themselves.  Further, they are
induced  to  trench on the  business of the tobacconist,  and the
variety storekeeper, by keeping their wares;  and  sometimes to
a considerable amount.
   So long as this abandonment of the legitimate duties  of the
pharmaceutist is permitted, it is hopeless to expect that appren-
tices will feel that interest  in the business they have embarked
in that is excited when  they are called upon to carry out the va-
rious chemical and pharmaceutical processes that properly belong
to every well conducted apothecary shop.
   Familiarity with those processes, in which the phenomena of
mechanical  division, solution, extraction, distillation and other
operations are practically studied, is  a true basis upon which to
build the knowledge required by a  skilful extemporaneous phar-
maceutist, or prescriptionist, whose vocation includes the highest
department of the art of an apothecary.   It  is indeed the only
basis upon which it should repose.  Making the officinal  prepa-
rations is therefore  an indispensable  part of pharmaceutical ed-
ucation, and no apothecary, whose  scheme of  business  does not
include  the  preparation  of at  least  a considerable portion  of
them, can efficiently educate those under his care.
   It may be said that the preparation of the strictly pharmaceu-
tical compounds by the manufacturer of character more surely
 supplies the dispenser with medicines of unexceptionable quality.
 This is  only partially true,  because  the  institution of  such  a
 branch of business by the qualified, soon calls into its scope  un-
 qualified and careless men, who look  at profit and  not  at thera-
 peutic power in the purchase and treatment of drugs.  Besides,
 the temptation to expand their  business is a strong inducement,
 even to the  skilful, to make quantities of  fugitive and easily de-
                              1* 
6
 composable compounds, which are forced  on distant  markets,
 where they are to be dispensed, and where, too often, the dispen-
 Ber deals them out  in  full  assurance of their excellence.   The
 gradual effect of  this custom on  the dispenser is to render him
 tributary to  the  druggist and  manufacturing pharmaceutist for
 many preparations, the efficiency of  which he is  bound,  by the
 highest calls of duty, to be personally  assured of.
   Before leaving this part of the subject we would urge a care-
 ful  consideration  of these  hints by  those of the brethren  to
 whom they apply,  that they may  see whether their duty to them-
 selves,  to their apprentices and assistants, and  to the medical
 profession, does not require them  toprepare all the officinal medi-
 cines that their shops will admit  of that are prone to deteriora-
 tion, or are difficult  to test.  In  this  category certain  of the
 extracts and of other classes of preparations  are not included,
 where the use of steam or a vacuum pan, or  some other pecu-
 liarity of  the process may be required, not  at the  command  of
 the apothecary.  There are  many chemicals that can be  easily
 made in  the  smallest  apothecary shop, from  materials it  must
 necessarily possess, and which will interest.the apprentice, yet
 the safe guard which analysis offers to the apothecary, in protect-
 ing his stock  of chemicals from adulteration, renders  it less im-
 portant  to include  these within the scope of his laboratory.
  The correspondence with apothecaries before alluded to, has
placed the Association in possession of many facts  bearing on
the condition of pharmacy and pharmaceutical education  within
 the United States.   It appears that the tenure of apprenticeship
resting  on the simple agreement  of the parties apprenticed has
 become  so lax, especially in the western States, that as a general
 rule very little dependence is placed upon it.   Boys are taken  at
 a venture  by the year, the employer making the best bargain he
 can, feeling  assured  that the boy will  leave or demand clerk's
 wages before he has  been with him half  a regular term.   From
 this  cause, it is stated, the number  of  half  educated assistants
 is quite  large, and  presents a serious difficulty in the prosecution
 of business in the way it should be conducted.  As the result  of
 this condition of things it has been found that there  are three
 classes of individuals engaged  in pharmaceutical  pursuits  who
 claim the interest of the Association, and to whom more partic- 
7
ttlariy this address is directed, viz:  First, those who are imper-
fectly acquainted  with pharmacy and are in  business for them-
selves ;  secondly, those who have been but half educated as  ap-
prentices and who are now assistants receiving salaries, having
the responsibility of business entrusted  to them ; thirdly,  those
who are now apprentices or beginners under circumstances and
with  ideas unfavorable to the acquirement of  a thorough know-
ledge of the drug and apothecary business.   Of course all  those
instances, which happily are not a few, where individual ambition
or natural talent for study or business has triumphed over  the
difficulties alluded to, are not included.
   In thus   addressing  the  individuals  composing these  three
classes, the  Association disclaims all disposition to arrogate to
its members, as a body, any superior claim to knowledge or skill.
They have associated  together to  improve themselves, and  to
adopt measures to improve the profession of pharmacy at large.
They know  that these classes of individuals exist; they feel that
a remedy is loudly called for,  which, whatever it may be,  can
only be rendered efficacious by the consent and co-operation of
the  parties  interested.  It  is, therefore,  earnestly hoped, that
this  address will be received in  the kindly spirit in  which it is
offered, and its suggestions examined and weighed  by all  who
may feel themselves to  belong to the classes addressed.
   After a young man has commenced business  he  rarely feels
disposed, or thinks he has time for systematic  duty, and is apt to
discard all attempts at  it, depending on the occasional references
to books rendered  necessary by the absolute demands of busi-
ness.  This is a mistake, there is sufficient time if it  is rightly
applied.  Let the  young proprietor who feels  his  deficiency,
make it  a rule before making  each  preparation, as required, to
read carefully the commentary in the Dispensatory,  and after-
wards note  the  correspondence or  difference  of his results with
those laid down.   This will cause him to detect errors, if they
exist, or to correct his own, will soon give a constant habit of ob-
servation of great practical value, and will gradually excite an
interest in the collateral branches of science, chemistry and bot-
any, that, if pursued, will  place him on the high road  to  pro-
fessional competency.   The young proprietor should  adopt at
first  an honorable scheme of conducting business; he should de- 
s
termine to sell good drugs and medicines, come what will, and in
doing so he will have a right to the best prices whether he gets
them or not.  He should cultivate a good  feeling  toward the
medical practitioners of  his neighborhood, should  study the in-
terest of the latter so far as the efficiency of  medicines is con-
cerned,  and physicians will soon, from interest, incline towards
him.  He will aid his success by storing his memory with gene-
ral information useful to  his patrons, and render himself  as ne-
cessary to the  comfort as.he is to the health of his neighborhood
by his willingness to give it  out.
  These remarks  apply to the dispenser of medicines rather than
to one doing a mixed or wholesale business ; on the former mainly
depends  the progress of  pharmacy, and  remembering his own
imperfect opportunities,  he should give to his apprentices or
subordinates the best tuition he is capable of.-  It is a mistaken
and short-sighted policy  in  the apothecary to withhold instruc-
tion beyond the  merest  calls of business, under the impression
that it will react unfavorably to his interest.   The man who has
efficient assistants will  have his reputation increased instead of
diminished, and this will be a safeguard  against  ingratitude,
when it  occurs.
  To this end he  should  improve and extend his pharmaceutical
library by annual additions; he should encourage the periodical
literature of Pharmacy to keep posted  up  with  the  improve-
ments and discoveries of the day, and he should exhibit such an
interest in his apprentices or assistants as will encourage them
to adopt a habit of study, which is the best safeguard against the
temptations into which young men and  boys  are drawn,  unless
they have some regular object of pursuit.
  The second class, or assistants but half educated, are a numer-
ous and  interesting  portion of the pharmaceutical  community.
They are found  every where, because the causes of their defi-
ciencies  exist every where, though  not  equally so.   To induce
these to do now what they should have done in their minority is
the object of this  appeal.   The assistant,  except  in  those  in-
stances where  the pressure of business is continuous during busi-
ness hours, has ample  opportunities for study.  He should not
fail to  embrace them on every occasion, whilst  his mind  is un-
trammelled by the troubles and  responsibilities of the engage- 
9
ments peculiar to the proprietor.   He should beware of the idea
that he " knows enough to conduct business."   In offering him-
self as a pharmaceutical assistant, a young  man tacitly declares
that he  is  capable of conducting a dispensing  establishment;
that he is a fit adjunct  to the physician in combatting disease.
He assumes a responsible position, next only to that of his em-
ployer.  In the eye of the law he is responsible, in the absence
of his employer, for the conduct of business, and is actionable for
the results of his own ignorance and carelessness.  A proper sense
of this should induce the assistant to qualify himself by study;
to read regularly and  understandingly, and assist  his reading
when  necessary  by experiment  and  observation.  He  should
never let  a false  pride  induce him to let an error pass over  un-
corrected, and he should always keep in view that his destiny is
to be a proprietor, and  act  as becomes  a pharmaceutist.  By
pursuing  these suggestions many third or fourth rate assistants
might command the best situations  and good salaries.
   The third class—the beginners or apprentices—call forth  the
earnest sympathy of the Association.  It depends much on  the
employer and his  chief assistant whether the apprentice  will
make rapid  or slow progress, or whether he will ever make  a
good apothecary ;  it very much also rests  with himself.   Some
dispositions  are  so inimical  to tuition that no amount of pains
 will fashion them into shape ;  yet it often happens that a promi-
sing youth will grow into irregularities from the want of  a little
candid training  on the part of the employer.   If  there is  any
one fault in American boys  more prominent than another, it  is
the inclination to act independently of authority.  The " young
America  " spirit leads to various ill  results, one of  the chief of
which is imperfect education, whether professional, mercantile or
mechanical.   It is one phase of this ill  spirit that is now filling
the ranks  of pharmacy with half educated  clerks.  Let  the
young apothecary do well what he attempts, and carry it  out on
all  occasions, from the  most menial service of  the shop  to the
most accurate operation of  the laboratory.  Let him vie with
his fellows in the graceful handling of the spatula and the  pes-
tle,  in the neatness of folding  a powder or  bundle, in the accu-
racy of writing or attaching a label, and in the quick,  quiet  and
courteous mode of  conducting business at the counter;  these are 
10
all parts of the accomplishment of a perfect pharmaceutist. The
beginner should early adopt the  idea that his vocation consists
of something  besides  a  business for  gaining  a livelihood ;  it
also partakes of the character of  a  liberal profession, and  de-
mands of its votaries that they uphold its ethics even at the sac-
rifice of gain, that they sell good medicines even if they get low
prices, because it is wrong  to dispense bad medicines when it  is
possible to get good.  It would be well if every beginner could
have a vision of the duties he has  to perform before entering the
precincts of the shop as an apprentice.  This picture would dis-
courage all but the earnest  ones who, seeing beyond present in-
conveniences and annoyances, aim at  the highest qualification.
To these the apothecary's  store,  with  all  its petty details  and
trials, its busy days and tedious evenings, affords a field rich in
the produce it yields to the unremitting exertions of the earnest
student; as with Scheele and Davy s6 with many an one in our
day.   World-renowned celebrity will cling to names unsuspected
of greatness, the early efforts of whose possessors are now con-
fined to the narrow limits of the shop.
  It is a misfortune to many that the idea of the lucrativeness
of.j$he apothecary business has long since obtained popular  cre-
dence ; and often the fond parent, anxious that  his boy should
be started on the road to fortune, has unwittingly doomed  him
to an unhappy companionship with the pestle and mortar, when
in the counting  room of the merchant  or  the  workshop of the
machinist he might  have  attained  to their desires.
  The numerous instances of individuals in  other callings  who
have commenced as apothecaries, bear  ample testimony to the
truth of this statement, and are a speaking caution to all  con-
cerned,  that  the fitness of boys  for  pharmaceutical  pursuits
should be ascertained before placing  them with apothecaries.
  The difficulties in the way of sustaining schools of pharmacy
will here, as in Europe, confine them to large cities, where the
number  of students and the accessories to study are numerous.
Slow but regular currents will circulate between these  and dis-
tant towns, and their Graduates, in seeking spheres of action, will
carry back  with them the principles they imbibe, and thus act as
examples to their less favored brethren, altogether advantageous
to the public weal. The vast importance, therefore, of good schools 
11
of pharmacy, where the sciences pertaining to our art are regu-
larly taught, is so evident, that this Association freely extends its
countenance and encouragement to those  already existing, and
to all new efforts, claiming for them the patronage they deserve.
   Such  are some of the more prominent  points at  issue in the
educational  reform so greatly needed in the pharmaceutical body
of the  United  States.  If the incubus of quackery was remo-
ved, a general feeling of the necessity of better means of phar-
maceutical education existed, and a strong chain of associations,
linked  together by  fraternal feeling,  established, the prospects
of American Pharmacy would  be flattering  indeed.   The most
sanguine believers in progress do not expect  a  sudden reforma-
tion ;  but there are  many who  look with strong faith and much
interest to the silent influence of a better education in working
a change among the individuals of the profession, and it is the
earnest hope of this Association that the hints now  offered in
this address will not be lost, but that many a brother, in his dis-
tant unpretending scene of action, will  be induced  to raise his
standing and usefulness by personal exertions, and  become  a
light to his brethren and a boon to his neighborhood. 
 
 
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