There are many other useful purposes for which this association and its branches stand which could be named, but those mentioned seem to me to be sufficient cause why every pharmacist in the city should be a member. The one great thing needed to effect an organization of this kind is that the members of the profession, calling, or trade should be acquainted with each other, and to that end it was thought advisable by the officers of the Nashville Branch of the A. Ph. A. to appoint a time for such a meeting, and invite all the pharmacists and their wives to be present and get acquainted with each other. We want the druggists' wives to become interested in the work of this association, because the ladies are always good, earnest workers, and when they take a notion that something ought to be done they usually find a way of accomplishing it.

Now I have something for every lady in the house to do, and when I tell you it is for your good, for the good of your husband and for the good of the community, I believe you will become interested in this work. I want every lady in the house whose husband is not a member of this association to insist on his joining at once, for it will make a better pharmacist of him, and every lady whose husband is a member and who does not attend the meeting, to urge him to attend and swap experiences and methods with his neighbor, thereby helping each other to solve store problems to the great advantage of each.

The Branch meets the second Thursday in each month at 3 o'clock and is in session for two hours and I can assure you that there is not another two hours spent during the month, that will be more profitable to him from every view point as the two spent at this meeting.

The methods of doing business now are different from those in vogue twenty years ago or even ten years since. New ideas and methods are advanced and

adopted by the trade and the tendency now is to co-operate with each other, whereas, formerly it was the custom to shun your fellow-craftsman for fear he might learn some of your business secrets. Now we are in business for success and this means get together, get acquainted with each other, study your business, keep up with the new ways, join your local and national associations, come out to the meetings of your local

branches, of the A. Ph. A. and N. A. R. D. They each furnish you with an up-to date journal. The journal of the A.Ph.A. keeps you informed on the professional side by telling you the latest processes of manufacturing and dispensing and furnishes you with good working formulas for all the late household and toilet requisites which have been tested and found all right, by experienced manipulators. The N. A. R. D. Notes will give you the latest ideas on store management, tell you of the methods others are using in keeping accounts and collecting the same, show you how to get your goods before the trade both by display and advertising; give you points in law to keep you out of trouble, and acquaint you with all the frauds and snide propositions being worked on the trade in different portions of the country. It requires some exertion on your part of course, to learn these things. These times you have got to read and study if you want to go forward, and don't forget there is no standing still in this game; if you are not advancing you are going backward. Reading, reflection, social intercourse, and travel furnish us with most all our ideas; your journals are filled with good ideas, some may not be better than what you have, but may furnish you a cue to improve your own. Help the general cause by giving your ideas, some one may be benefitted by them, how ever simple they may be. Don't be willing to let the other fellow do all the work and you idly accept the benefit, without helping to pay the cost; shoulder your part like

a man.

Encourage your clerk to join the association; 'twill make him a better clerk. If you can't attend the meetings, send him. Make it a rule that your house shall be represented at each meeting. Take your note book with you, jot down the good ideas when you hear one, get them on paper; they will keep; memory sometimes fails. When you get back to the store put it into operation. A good thing learned is no good unless put into practice.

They tell us that there is a "Drug crisis at hand," that pharmacy is loosing its prestige as a learned profession, that we are drifting into the hands of the manufacturer and commercialism. One of our drug journals for the last two or three months has had a page or two of articles in each issue on this topic, from

druggists all over the country. Are we by our inattention, listlessness and laziness, going to let the most profitable part, the professional side of our business, slip from our hands? That manufacturing part of our business is what distinguishes us from the common tradesman. It is the precision and learning required to master the science of pharmacy and chemistry that lifts the pharmacist above the level of the butcher and the dry goods man. Are you going to give up this part of your business? If so, then you had as well prepare to accept the profits of the grocer who hands down a can of peas or cuts off and weighs out a dime's worth of bacon, because it requires no more care or knowledge to hand out a bottle of patent medicine or five cents worth of epsom salts.

We southern pharmacists must wake up and get onto our job if we are going to get in the push and not let commercialism beat us out of our profession. There is danger of it. If you will look at the report of the membership committee at the Denver meeting you will find that only fifteen new members were enrolled during the last year from the entire fifteen southern states. I have no statistics of the number dropped. This is not a record to be proud of, is it?

During the sixty years that the A.Ph.A. has been in existence, it has stood for the best and highest standards in every department of pharmacy. It has laid the foundation and built up the best and most scientific pharmacopoeia in the world. Most of the labor on the revision of this work, which occurs every ten years, is done by the members of this association, and solely for the love of pharmacy, without a cent of remuneration.

Our other standard, the N. F. was born, reared and brought to its present state of proficiency entirely by the efforts of this association. It is one of our legal standards and now stands as the peer of the greatest pharmacopoeia in the world. The work on this is also a work of love and has been conducted and presided over by that grand old Nestor of pharmacy, Prof. C. Lewis Diehl, of Louisville, Ky., who, if I am not mistaken, has been chairman of the committee in

Does it not seem that we who profit by the labors of such men, should at least be willing to endorse and aid them by enrolling our names on the membership of such an organization, and pay into its coffers the small amount of annual dues required, especially when more than value received is sent out in return to each member in the publications of the association.

Every pharmacist should be proud of the honor of membership in such an organization and should proclaim it to his customers and the medical profession by using some such legend as "Member of the A. Ph. A." on all his business stationery, like letter and bill heads, prescription blanks, etc., thus advertising that you are in the front ranks of pharmacy.

And now in conclusion I want to state, that the Nashville Branch of the A. Ph. A. was organized in this city nearly three years ago. There are now thirty odd members enrolled. The work done by this branch has already created some notice in "Pharmaceutical Circles" outside of our city and state and has been the means of bringing this great association to be our guest for next year. It is considered quite a distinction to have the honor of entertaining this association. Six cities contended for the 1913 meeting, but Nashville was selected by a unanimous vote. Now there are still a good many druggists in Nashville who are not members of this association. I think it would be an unique distinction for Nashville if she could be able to say that every proprietor and manager of a drug store in the city was a member of the A. Ph. A. May we not during the year gather them all in. If so, and they will all turn out one day during the meeting we will have a group picture of the gang made and I will guarantee it to appear in every drug journal in the United States. The drug clerks are also asked to become members, for in a few years they will become the proprietors and leaders in pharmacy and there is no better way they can prepare themselves to shoulder the burdens and responsibilities that will come to them.

They make liniments smell so much like

honest man can't even have a touch of rheumatism without being mistaken for a dude. -Ohio State Journal.

Chicago Branch of the A. Ph. A.

W. B. DAY, Secretary.

The December meeting of the Chicago Branch was held at the University of Illinois School of Pharmacy, Tuesday evening, the 17th, and was devoted to a symposium on "Pleasant Medication."

President J. H. Wells occupied the chair. Professor C. N. Snow presented a paper on Troches which considered the agents intended to be administered in this form and gave an account of the troches included in the more recent foreign pharmacopoeias. He pointed out that many of the troches official in foreign pharmacopoeias are not included in the U. S. P. He compared a list of the U. S. P. troches from the first pharmacopoeia to the present. The speaker also discussed the flavoring of the various troches official here and abroad. The paper closed with a discussion and forecast of the troches which will be included in the new National Formulary. Samples of several of these prepared for the occasion were shown.

Dr. Fantus then presented his paper on Candy Medication. He referred to the difficulties in getting children to take medicine when the medicine is unobjectionable perhaps even pleasant to the adult taste. Experience with children of fond and over-indulgent parents had led the speaker to avail himself of the child's well-known fondness for candy, in order to give the medicine in this form. He had found that the pharmacopoeial lozenges with the exception of the Santonin troches were not suited to his purpose. As a result of his experiments Dr. Fantus laid down these principles: that candy medicine must be pleasant and must disintegrate rapidly in the mouth; that only tasteless or nearly tasteless medicaments can be given in candy form; that a lightly-compressed tablet of powdered sugar is the most practical form for candy medication as it keeps well and disintegrates rapidly. Dr. Fantus prepared several kinds of tablets extemporaneously, so as to indicate how readily the pharmacist might prepare these upon call. Neither great skill nor expensive equipment is required. Typical formulas were submitted and samples of about twenty kinds of candy medicine were shown. (This paper will be published in full in the Journal).

Professor A. W. Linton, of Valparaiso University, discussed the Elixirs, prefacing his remarks with an interesting historical sketch of the elixir from the time of the alchemists when the much-sought elixir was the one which would convert baser metals into gold,

down through the later centuries when the "elixir of long life" and similar preparations were given much attention, and from thence to our modern elixirs as represented in our pharmacopoeia and national formulary. Professor Linton showed a number of specimens of the official elixirs and commented on them. He spoke of the desire for a wider range of flavors and told how it had been met in the elixirs proposed for the National Formulary. He referred also to the desirability of decreasing the alcohol strength as far as feasible.

Mr. M. M. Burdick of the Abbott Alkaloidal Co.. closed with the presentation of the subject of pleasant medication as dealt with by the manufacturer. He pointed out the advantage in equipment, accuracy and economy which the manufacturer possesses as regards some lines of pharmaceuticals and urged the need of greater co-operation between the various interests involved in the supplying of medicines.

The papers as presented, were discussed by President Wells, Mr. Storer, Mr. Sass, Mr. Galloway, Mr. Loesch, Mr. Gray and others. Upon motion a vote of thanks was tendered the speakers of the evening.

A committee consisting of Professors Clark, and Miner and Mr. Becker was appointed to present a list of nominations for the branch offices at the January meeting.

Pittsburgh Branch.

B. E. PRITCHARD, Secretary.

The Pittsburgh Branch held a very interesting session Friday evening, November 8, for the first time since the election, nearly two years ago, without having President Andrew Campbell, of Greensburg, with his hand on the tiller. Dr. Louis Saalbach, first vice-president, however, guided the craft safely over the shoals of parliamentary usages very satisfactorily. Mr. Campbell thoughtfully sent his regrets that he could not possibly arrange to be present.

Dr. F. J. Blumenschein, chairman of the Committee on Practice, called attention to the dangers involved in the handling of bottles and other containers brought into the pharmacy for refilling from the presence of patients suffering from ailments the nature of which are not known to the dispenser, thereby subjecting him to the possibility of being infected with dangerous disease germs. During the discussion aroused by this statement Dr. Emanuel suggested that the chances were so remote as to be scarcely worthy of serious consideration. B. E. Pritchard, how

ever, cited two instances of local occurrence within the past few years in which death had resulted from diseases that had been incurred as a result of the practice. One of these being due to smallpox, the other to scarlet fever, which served to give the warning-note sounded by Dr. Blumenschein a more serious ring. The discussion was joined in by Mr. O'Brien and Drs. Koch and Wurdack. Continuing, Dr. Blumenschein said: "Particularly is there necessity for caution when immediately after the refilling of a prescription for gonorrhoea or syphilis, an eye lotion should follow, as sometimes happens, in which event the evil results go further than to the dispenser only." Recent unfortunate happenings have served to call marked attention to the need for especial care being observed in the handling of medicines with closely synonymous names. The numerous creolin preparations, too, were given consideration in Dr. Blumenschein's talk because of the fact that they are so freely dispensed in the drug store, and are not looked upon as being dangerous drugs; in fact one of the most widely exploited preparations of this class, viz: Creolin-Pearson, bears a label conspicuously displayed containing the words "Non-Poisonous." Mr. Young said there are cases on record of deaths traced to the misuse of the latter preparation. The outcome of this discussion was the adoption of a resolution, introduced by Dr. Emanuel and supported by Dr. Koch, instructing the secretary to communicate with the distributors of Creolin-Pearson, calling attention to the erroneous practice of labeling it non-poisonous.

Referring to the query concerning the permanence and availability of the U. S. P. Syrup of Hypophosphites, Dr. Blumenschein held that the content of water present is too great and should be reduced, as that is the cause for its non-keeping quality.

Dr. F. A. Judd delivered a very instructive discourse upon the subject, "The Constituents of Aspidium and Ergot." Dr. Judd dwelt largely upon the difficulties involved by the confusion in the nomenclature of the constituents of the two drugs, and brought out many instances tending to show the necessity for a clearing of the atmosphere surrounding the subject matter pertaining to these remedies as found in our literature. The subject was discussed by Drs. Emanuel, Koch and Blumenschein. The latter suggested that most of the literature upon these drugs was to be found in the writeups accompanying the products of manufacturing

pharmaceutical houses in the exploiting of

their

own preparations, which, he said, serves to lead up to the importance of our getting back to Galen in our teachings and leave the proprietaries, which are the chief cause of the discordant conditions noted, go hang, which summing up of the situation was unanimously commended.

The closing hour of the evening's session was given over to the exploitation of "Plants Yielding U. S. P. Drugs Found in Allegheny County," by Dr. J. H. Wurdack, who exhibited more than forty varieties, all of which were of his own gathering during numerous botanizing excursions throughout the vicinity of Pittsburgh. Dr. Wurdack's intimate knowledge of his subject was a surprise to his audience, and his talk was most interestingly instructive. Dr. Wurdack said, "druggists should give more attention to this method of securing diversion, as he knew of nothing more interesting than occasional botanizing trips into the country.

These Branch meetings are held at the College of Pharmacy every second Friday evening of each month during the winter and spring, and are intended to give freely to the druggists, their clerks and apprentices, valuable information in connection with their calling. Anyone sufficiently interested to come will find a glad welcome.

W. R. WHITE, Secretary.

The Nashville Branch of the American Pharmaceutical Association delightfully entertained the druggists of Nashville, together with their wives and sweethearts, with a social get-together-meeting, Thursday evening, November 7, at Bloomstein's Hall on Church street.

The meeting was attended by about sixty people and proved to be one of the most enjoyable meetings of the kind ever held here. Many new links of friendship were formed and a feeling of enthusiasm and good fellowship pervaded the entire meeting.

It is intended that other meetings of this character will be held in the future from time to time in order that the druggists of the city may become better acquainted socially and be better prepared to entertain the 61st annual convention of the American Pharmaceutical Association which will meet here next August.

The following very interesting program was greatly enjoyed:

Introductory remarks by the toastmaster, William R. White.

Piano selection, by Mrs. William R. White.

Address, "The A. Ph. A.," by Dr. J. O. Burge, the local Secretary of the A. Ph. A. Piano selection, Miss Isabelle Davis.

Address, "Nashville's Debt to the A. Ph. A.," by C. S. Martin, ex-President of the National Wholesale Druggists' Association.

Recitation, by Miss Dorothy Clark.

Short enthusiastic remarks were made by the following members: Dr. E. A. Ruddiman, Professor of Pharmacy at Vanderbilt; M. E. Hutton, member State Board of Pharmacy; E. C. Finch, of Waverly, Tenn., President Tennessee Pharmaceutical Association; J. T. Shannon, Secretary Tennessee Pharmaceutical Association, and Ira B. Clark, Secretary Tennessee Board of Pharmacy.

The remainder of the evening was then devoted to the social features, in which an effort was made to get everybody acquainted. Two courses of dainty refreshments, consisting of ices, fruits, etc., were then served, greatly to the enjoyment of all present.

The regular meeting of the branch was held in Furman Hall at Vanderbilt University at 3 o'clock Nov. 14, with Dr. J. O. Burge in the chair. A very favorable and encouraging report was made by the committee of the entertainment given by the branch to the druggists of the city at Bloomstein's Hall, and it was decided to give another one some time in January or February.

Further plans were discussed for the entertainment of the national convention of the American Pharmaceutical Association, which will meet here next year. Dr. E. A. Ruddiman, chairman of the General Entertainment Committee, appointed the following as chairmen of the sub-committees: Ira B. Clark, membership; M. E. Hutton, finance; Wm. R. White, entertainment.

A communication from the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association was presented, showing some of the work this body is doing in its propaganda for reform in proprietary medicines and in its efforts for a more rational use of medicines. The communication was very favorably discussed and their work commended.

The next meeting will be held at the same place, Dec. 12, when abstracts reviewing the year's work in pharmacy will be presented.

New York Branch.

HUGH CRAIG, Secretary.

A regular meeting of the New York Branch of the American Pharmaceutical Association was held November 11, with President G. C. Diekman in the chair. The reading of the minutes of the previous meeting was omitted. The report of Treasurer Joseph Weinstein was duly received.

With the exception of that of the Committee on the Progress of Pharmacy, no committee reports were presented. Otto Raubenheimer, the chairman of the Committee on the Progress of Pharmacy, gave a number of brief abstracts of articles appearing in recent European pharmacal journals. Among the subjects considered were "Cinchona and Its Galenical Preparations," "The Milk-Curdling Constituent of Salep," "The Manufacture of Santonin in Turkestan," "The Relation of the Chemical Constitution and the Pharmacological Action of Preparations of Antimony," "A New Antidote for Antimony," "Opium and Its Preparations," "Tests of Identity for Tincture of Aloes," "Corks Bleached with Sulphur Dioxide," "Transmutation of Elements," "The Coloring Substance of Egg Yolk," "Milk Preservation with Peroxides," and "The Composition of Oil of Cedar." He also spoke of the necessity of a knowledge of antidotes on the part of the pharmacist and told of a case of poisoning with hydrocyanic acid in which he had successfully used the official antidote for arsenic. Mr. Raubenheimer described briefly some new additions to the materia medica.

In discussing the report of Mr. Raubenheimer, J. L. Mayer said that because there is a variability in the results obtained by different operators in assaying opium, due to the difficulty of completely extracting the drug, the Pharmacopoeia should not assume that the assay showed the exact morphine content. Mr. Mayer referred briefly to the lectures recently given by Sir William Ramsay in Brooklyn.

Secretary Hugh Craig announced that a meeting of the special committee on the certification of pharmacies with the conferring committee of the county medical society would be held at an early date. The secretary also read a communication from J. H. Beal, the general secretary of the parent organization, in which the branch was reminded that it was benefitted by any efforts put forward by its members to increase the membership of the Association.