New Series Vol. XXVIII.

Addresses.

VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. Delivered to the Graduating Class of the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy,

BY

PROF. C. P. T. FENNEL,

CINCINNATI.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Graduates:

It rests upon me to-night to complete the ceremonies with which it is a custom of this college to honor its graduating class, by commending you to the confidence of the public.

It is surely a time for congratulations. You are happy and proud of the success you have obtained, and well may be, for you have earned it by hard and steady work.

The ordeal through which you have passed, your long service, the study, the lectures and the trying examinations, all indicate the present estimate by this college of the importance of your calling and the necessity for a thorough preparation to enable you to follow your calling properly.

The simple ceremony of conferring the degree of Graduate of Pharmacy invests you with grave responsibilities. Upon a like occasion, five years ago, I remarked to the members of the graduating class that they were entering upon the duties of a pharmacist when a crisis in pharmacy was approaching. To-night I repeat it, not as a parrot cry passed down from father to son, but as truth substantiated by conclusive evidence. The crisis in pharmacy is no longer approaching, but has appeared, and is with us to remain for some time

to come.

In this age of education and progress

Whole Volume LXVII.

the position of the pharmacist is in many respects a peculiar and trying one. The feat of riding two horses at one time in opposite directions is traditional and instructive, inasmuch as the tumble is assured and the end of the experiment prompt and decisive. So with the pharmacist; he endeavors to occupy a dual position, that of a professional and a merchant at one and and the same time. Originally wealthy, educated, refined and respected by all, but gradually allowing evil to enter his career of effort and virtue, until degeneracy has become a part of himself, the pharmacist has become so completely absorbed in his own self-glorification that he has failed to see in himself what his more astute neighboring merchant has noticed long ago.

Success in any calling is only attained by strict adherence to the principles of honesty, integrity and justice. Any deviation from the principles involved will be followed, sooner or later, by misfortune, dishonor and loss of public confidence.

It is rightly said that life is not measured by the time that elapses from birth to death, but by the amount of assistance rendered towards the advancement and betterment of the human race. In pharmacy, as in every other walk of life, the highest self-interest is to be found in the forgetting of self. No one will dispute that Pharmacy is the humble handmaid of Medicine, and that the pharmacist, her representative, is the outgrowth of public requirement. He is maintained in his position by public requirement only so long as he meets their demands, and his success is measured in proportion to which he enhances his self-interest or his calling, the profession.

Graduates and fellow-graduates, the

members of the Faculty of the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy have given you a code of ethics for your guidance in a professional career, and yet I cannot refrain from placing before your consideration a few topics of importance involving the health and happiness of a people, and therefore likely vital to the interests of pharmacy.

The fact that pharmacists deal in goods of which his patrons are not judges exposes him to imputations from which he is seldom, if ever, free. Pharmacists, as a rule, do not guard themselves against these, and do not rise above them.

We also recognize that as professional pharmacists we owe the public certain obligations to aid in maintaining the greatest of physical blessings, health; to aid in restoring it to those from whom that blessing is temporarily withdrawn; to aid in soothing the life of those to whom that blessing will never come again. In accepting these obligations we assume the responsibilities, and in proportion to which we share them will we be awarded the confidence of the public.

We may therefore ask ourselves: Do we meet these obligations, and do American pharmacists maintain their position among the recognized professions? Do American pharmacists furnish evidence of better qualification for research and elaboration to maintain and aid in the restoration of health? If not, why not?

That pharmacy of the present day admits of improvement will probably be admitted on all sides. What human institution does not? In what manner this improvement shall be accomplished opinions will differ. The evils that exist to-day are known to all pharmacists, yet the causes which produce them are ignored.

Pharmacists have drifted into everything that will yield an income of some kind. They have taken the ground of a mere trader, and are beaten by the more astute trader on their own ground. For the sake of revenue professional honor has been sacrificed. The professional air of the pharmacist has become vitiated by the customs and habits of the

trader. Is it surprising that public confidence has been lost? You may say that pharmacists in their struggle for existence were compelled to resort to these measures, but I will maintain that such is not the fact. We all share alike in development and progress; we must grasp every new advance within our domain, and improve its course as fast as our abilities and qualifications will permit. Medical practitioners and lawyers have like struggles for existence, and come under the same laws of evolution. Have they not retained their professional prestige and inspired public confidence? If it be true that pharmacists have lost professional standing, can it be possible that it is owing to a lack of qualification? Is it possible that he no longer meets the demands of public requirement, and that his days of usefulness are numbered?

Let us reason and be just. Experience and observation have demonstrated that the great majority of the pharmacists of to-day do not manufacture their own pharmacopoeial preparations, but buy them from manufacturing firms. To tolerate the manufacture of medicinal preparations on the wholesale plan is not in the interest of pharmacy, nor is the practice likely to promote the welfare of the public or the self-interests of the pharmacists. The public expect to be served with preparations that are trustworthy. How can the pharmacist verify their therapeutic value unless he has prepared them himself and give the assurance of trustworthiness. Let us be charitable and admit that the pharmacist is qualified to ascertain their value by chemical examination or assay, and ascribe his lack of doing so to indifference. Yet the pharmacist has been so blind as not to realize that by buying manufactured goods he cuts his own professional platform from under his feet, neglecting what ought to be his own cherished art of compounding for that of a mere trader. Can he wonder at the harvest-reaping as he has sown.

Graduates of to-night, I know you all desire future pharmaceutical success. To obtain it you must continue in the work just begun, master the principles of the art, cling to your phar