PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
SPEECH OF 
F. A. TSCHIFFELY 
BEFORE THE 
Washington Pharmaceutical Association, 
WEDNESDAY, MAT 6, 1874. 
Against the bill of the College of Pharmacy, Washington, D. C, 
Mr. President : A few days ago, I noticed in one ci 
our local papers, that the National College of Pharmacy 
had presented a bill to our Legislative Assembly to prevent 
incompetent persons from engaging in the practice of phar- 
macy, in order that the community might be better pro- 
tected. Having some little knowledge of this bill, I wish 
to make a few remarks in regard to the way by which it is 
proposed to accomplish its object. True, sir, the college 
claims that through their bill the health and lives of the 
public will find protection; but I will endeavor to show 
that while their bill is founded on this declaration, in its 
true character it is nothing more than a little bill of rights 
to protect proprietorship, and its darling derivative mo- 
nopoly; a bill by which protection to the community is 2 
made the excuse under which the college, as principals of 
drug stores, wish to shelter their several interests. 
Should we ask the public in what way was protection 
needed to secure them against errors that arise from the 
preparing and compounding of medicines, would they nor 
tell us competent pharmacists who have had sufficient ex- 
perience and knowledge to dispense their medicines, in 
short to be able to perform the duties of practicing phar- 
macists, without endangering their health and lives. This 
is at least my idea of the security the public needs. But, 
strange to say, the college assumes the ground that se- 
curity to the public is in the hands of such persons who 
are principals of drug stores, and not in the hands of those 
who prepare and compound medicines. And in support of 
this theory the college have originated a bill which declares 
a distinction between principals and clerks, on the ground 
that more competency is required of the former than the 
latter; or in other words, that while clerks may be com- 
petent to compound in the stores of their proprietors, yet 
are not qualilied to do so in stores for themselves, on ac- 
count of the higher qualities demanded of principals than 
clerks, which are necessary to protect the community, for 
says the bill that while all assistants who have been in the 
business as dispensing clerks for four years and are twenty- 
one years of age at the time of the passage of the law may be 
recognized practicing pharmacists as clerks, but not allowed 
to open or conduct drug stores for themselves. What 
kind conditions. They remind me of a historical anecdote 
I once read: Oliver Cromwell, during his reign, besieged a 
certain Catholic town; the Catholics agreed to surrender, 
provided the ceremonies of their religion should be allowed 
them. To which Oliver replied : “Oh ! granted, granted ; 
certainly.” He however added : “But if one of them shall 
dare to be found at mass, he shall be hanged.” How kind 
and conciliating. The law of the college permits us to 3 
assume the duties of practicing pharmacists, but, however, 
adds, if one of us are caught doing so for .ourselves, a tine 
of one hundred dollars shall he imposed, (which is nearly 
as bad as being hanged at this present time,) unless we 
shall have first passed an examination before the Board of 
Examiners as provided for, or else produce a diploma from 
some college of pharmacy. It may, therefore, be considered 
by the members of this association that these are the 
terms which are to be allotted to them. 
Let us now turn to the difference of responsibility be- 
tween principals and assistants, in order to ascertain 
whether this he true or not. It will be necessary to inquire 
into the nature of compounding medicines, and. the cor- 
responding demands it makes upon those who engage in it. 
It may be correctly said that the practice of pharmacy 
forms one of the most difficult branches of knowledge, one 
which requires the greatest amount of observation, re- 
flection, and responsibility, in order to accomplish it in a 
manner proportionate to its magnitude. Under these re- 
quirements falls the important operation of supplying medi- 
cinal substances, in the shape of prescriptions and many 
other ways, the result of which must effect the public, 
either for good or for evil. The work, as a matter of 
course, must be assigned to those who may be considered 
competent; when this is done, the risk and responsibility 
that follows, is placed in the hands of those to whom the 
work has been consigned, and not in the hands of the 
principals of stores, as the college imagines, but in the body 
aggregate who prepare and dispense medicine. We hereby 
see that the very nature and requirements of the practice 
of pharmacy is of such a standard that the health and 
lives of the community are completely in the hands of 
those who perform its duties. I will admit that if as- 
sistants are exempt from pharmacy duties, and the work 
assigned to principals, then, of course, the responsibility 4 
would devolve on the latter; but I will show by the bill of 
the college itself that this is not the case, but on the con- 
trary, that the duties allotted to both are precisely the 
same, for the law declares tint after the passage of said 
law there shall be recognized two distinct classes of phar- 
macists, first, the registered pharmacists, and second, the 
assistant registered pharmacists, both of which shall be 
acknowledged competent to prepare and dispense medicine 
for the public, and the law, to make the acknowledgment 
more explicit, further declares, that no person or persons, 
(except registered or assistant registered pharmacists,) shall 
be allowed to compound medicine for the public unless 
under the immediate supervision of a registered or assistant 
registered pharmacist. Here we not only see that assist- 
ants are considered competent, but that they are ac- 
knowledged qualified to instruct apprentices. This is a 
most important admission on the part of the college ; an 
admission which immediately threatens the whole doctrines 
of the distinction, as claimed by it, with utter confutation. 
I hope now that we can plainly see that all distinction 
declared between persons who engage in the practice of 
pharmacy (as shown by the language of the bill of the 
college itself) is nothing more than a distinction without 
difference. The attempt of the college at distinction, and 
then the total overthrow of the same by the acknowledg- 
ment, as found in the law, that both classes recognized 
are regularly practicing pharmacists, maybe well illustrated 
by the classical image of a man struggling in a hog without 
the power to extricate himself, and incapable of being aided 
by any friendly hand, while instead of struggling in a hog 
iie at last finds himself, from some cause or other, standing 
upon the rock of truth. 
Here, I suppose, I might safely stop so far as distinction 
is concerned; but in order to get acquainted as much as 
possible with our technical friend, (the college,) let us dig a 5 
little into the practical workings of the bill under consider- 
ation. Now, this bill allows us all, provided we have been 
in the business four years and are twenty-one years of age, 
to register as '-Msistant registered pharmacists, which per- 
mit us to go into the laboratories and behind the counters 
of registered pharmacists, or proprietors, and dispense med- 
icine to the public with impunity, and the college, speaking 
through their bill, says we are competent to do so, and 
denies at the same time the right to all others who are not 
registered or assistant registered pharmacists. Now this 
may be considered the provision which the community is 
to receive to protect their health and lives, for this is all 
the bill gives. But when any assistant wishes to open or 
conduct a store'for himself, and the college*, as .proprietors, 
at the same time being governed by that instpictive love 
of monopoly so natural to the human breast, points the 
assistant to that clause in the bill which declares that none 
but registered pharmacists shall be allowed to open and 
conduct stores; because, as the college says: “If we permit 
assistants to conduct stores without putting them through 
a course of sprouts, the public might be endangered.” Now 
the natural converse of this assertion is that assistants do 
not endanger the public until they go into business for 
themselves. Then it must follow, as a matter of course, that 
assistants can run the stores of their proprietors, instruct 
and superintend the apprentices—in short to assume all 
the duties of pharmacy, and at the same time run no risk 
of harming the community, because the risk is with the 
proprietor, who, perhaps, has gone to dinner, gone to the 
springs, gone to Europe—for the theory of the college says 
that the responsibility of clerks or assistants does not com- 
mence until they open stores for themselves, in the very 
language of the bill itself. A person may be a competent 
assistant, but not a qualified principal. Not qualified; why? 
Because then the lives of the public are at stake. Now, if I were to accept this theory on the one hand, on the other I 
would recommend an amendment to the bill, founded on the 
assertion of the college that assistants are to 
dispense medicine as clerks for the public, but not qualified 
to carry on a store in their own name and dispense its med- 
icine*, because then the community might suffer—therefore, 
after the passage of the bill it shall be unlawful for any 
person or persons to engage in the compounding of medi- 
cines except assistant pharmacists, it having been discov- 
ered that this is the only class who can dispense without 
endangering the people. Certainly nothing more than a log- 
ical conclusion and a safe recommendation to the community, 
deducted from the theory as laid down by the National 
College of pharmacy. But to return to the practical work- 
ings of the bill, let us first inquire who composes that class 
known as assistant registered pharmacists. I will answer, 
all those persons who have been engaged as clerks for four, 
and, perhaps, fifty years, at the time of the bill becoming 
a law. The large majority of this class have been employ- 
ed as competent compounders of medicine over six, eight, 
and ten years, and have always possessed the utmost con- 
fidence of their employer, and in the same degree been 
relied on by the public. And yet, one of their class, wish- 
ing to open a store for himself, must either produce a 
diploma, a thing which has never been required in all his 
experience as a clerk, or pass an examination, another thing 
sprung upon him with perhaps but one day’s notice. Should 
he wish to go into business, soon after the passage of this 
bill, the result is that experience as clerks availeth noth- 
ing toward the accomplishment of the end, which all of us 
sooner or later seek. 
Do not these requirements on the part of the college 
conclusively show that the extraordinary demands put upon 
assistants are for the purpose of checking the opening of 
drug stores in the future, so that those already in the busi- 7 
ness as proprietors may be protected? And now I will put 
it to the candor of all who are the least conversant with 
this matter, if the right to open and conduct drug 
stores belongs to the regularly constituted pharmacists, and 
and if that class known as assistants have been recognized 
as such, must it not necessarily follow that they must 
either be granted all the privileges of opening and con- 
ducting stores for themselves, or else the college must 
admit that the assistants, recognized under their bill to 
protect the community, as competent pharmacists, are not 
pharmacists, and therefore unworthy of the work assigned 
them as such. 
The bill is certainly famous for declaring all sorts of 
things, and at the same time denying the same in such a 
manner that I am indeed at a loss to know how to interpret 
the strange confusion of ideas, and the great uncertainty 
of meaning, as found in it. Surely the college should know 
all about the competency which the pharmaceutical pro- 
fession requires, but the trouble, I guess, is not with the 
college, but with the subject it has attempted to handle, 
for whoever attempts to prove that there is a distinction in 
regard to the requirements and responsibility between per- 
sons who prepare and dispense medicine for the public 
must surely be oppressed by its weight, be his strength 
ever so great. 
The bill is still pending before our Legislative Assembly, 
and if it should become a law, then our association will be 
no longer the Washington Pharmaceutical Association, but 
the Assistant Washington Pharmaceutical Association. 
Then we will not be, what we have thought proper to call 
ourselves, pharmacists. Then we will be denied the right 
to open and own drug stores for ourselves, unless we first 
prepare ourselves by examination and diploma prostitution. 
For one, I want no such law made, but rather a law that 
will protect the community on the one hand, and on the other give to those who are competent and deserving, not 
half, but all the right and privileges that rightfully belong 
to the practice of pharmacy, thus making class, 
in which there will be no contest between power and right