It is to be hoped that the A. Ph. A. will not consider that because Ohio has not spoken she does not want it, but rather that she was too diffident to offer the invitation. She does want it, and some of her reasons for asking it are as follows:

Ohio is practically the geographical center of the country; is only a few miles from the actual center of population of the United States according to the last census. These two points should favor convention attendance, since the convention would at least be held at headquarters in alternate years.

Ohio boasts a pharmaceutical institution which no other state in the Union, or in fact no other country on the globe can produce the Lloyd Library, situated in Cincinnati. While we do not know where the ultimate ownership of this wonderful library is to be placed, it is pleasing to dwell on the ideal which the union of this institution and the great old A. Ph. A. would make.

Cincinnati also has a college of Pharmacy, a young but healthy Branch of the A. Ph. A., and would welcome the addition to her community of this famous organization.

Columbus, too, is not without inducements to offer the A. Ph. A. in selecting a permanent home; it is the Capital city, located in the center of the state; excellent shipping and printing facilities; large stocks of directly imported apparatus and chemicals to draw from; a University with about 4000 students and the largest Pharmacy Department of any State University; unusual library facilities, and good building sites. As yet Columbus has no A. Ph. A. Branch, but hopes in the near future to secure such an organization.

Cleveland, with its extensive lake front should be a good summer convention city. Being the "Sixth City" all good shipping and printing facilities are to be had there; it has a college of Pharmacy and a good measure of pharmaceutical association spirit, all of which would add to its attractiveness for the A. Ph. A.

From this brief review of the pharmaceutical resources of Ohio, we judge it will stand in the front rank with other states and cities in what it has to offer to the A. Ph. A. and the welcome which it would extend, and we hope will have consideration along with them.

YOUR BEST INVESTMENT.*

There isn't anything about making money that gives us a grouch. Fond as we may be of baseball, pool or auction pinochle, we like making money better.

They say it takes money to make money, and it's true. If we don't have any money we have to borrow it. Getting into business without capital is like getting

into society without clothes. It can't be done.

Have you ten dollars in the bank or in the cash register?

If you haven't, go out and borrow it, because I have something I want you to use that ten for. No, don't send it to me. I've got ten of my own.

You can invest ten dollars right now where it will bring you ten tens, a hundred tens, perhaps more before the year is over.

How many trade papers are you taking? Are you taking ten dollars' worth a year? Are you paying ten dollars a year in subscriptions to trade journals and business magazines? If you are that's all I have to say to you, because you have made your investment and you will get the returns-unless you don't read those publications.

But if you are spending any less than ten dollars a year for trade and business. literature you are saving money at a great expense. Every business man needs half * Copyright, 1914, by Frank Farrington.

a dozen trade publications or more. He needs the ideas they contain. His own ideas run out. He puts a mistaken value on his own ability if he doesn't take pains to find out what other people know.

Every dollar invested in trade journals that you will read is a dollar invested where it will bring you bigger returns than a hundred invested in goods.

Wouldn't you willingly give ten dollars for an idea that would enable you to increase your income, the receipts of your business or your salary a net hundred dollars? Well, if you knew where you could spend ten to that effect, wild horses couldn't hold you back from making the expenditure.

If you have not been spending ten dollars a year for business literature it is for the reason that you do not believe it will pay you as I say it will.

Perhaps you argue that you do take a number of trade papers and that they don't bring you any money. Either you do not read those papers or else you are mistaken. If you read any trade papers regularly, I don't care what it is or whether it is directly applicable to your individual business, it will bring you money, business, successfar more than ten dollars' worth.

A trade paper is not like medicine. The man who reasons that if a dose of medicine is good a whole bottle full will be better is going to poison himself. The man who reasons that if one trade paper is good more will be better is going to put rubber into his heels, enthusiasm into his brain and gimp into his backbone.

The trade paper, the technical publication applied to your business, will put life into it in spite of you unless you throw it in the waste basket without reading it.

And if you don't want to see your business take a jump, don't let any of the people employed around your place get at the trade papers. The employee who gets the habit of reading such literature is sure to want to start something. Keep the papers of that sort away from the boys, or in a short time you will find they are learning the business faster than you are.

There are no opinions and There are no

The advertisements alone in one good trade paper are worth a good deal more than ten dollars a year if you study them. The trade press of the country has developed tremendously in class and in independence in the last few years. better informed men connected with your business than those whose experiences and advice you find in the trade papers connected with it. better manufacturers or producers of your kind of merchandise than those whose advertising you find in the journals of the business.

The man who wants to know what to do to get more trade, what to do to increasse his income, where and what and when to buy for use or for sale in his business, must have the trade papers, or else he will find it utterly impossible to keep up with his competitors.

If your competition is getting the better of you, if your business is falling back actually or comparatively, make up your mind that competition is making use of the trade journals. Even if you are not spending ten dollars a year for trade literature and using it, the other fellow is, and he will get your business.

If you spend ten dollars this year for trade papers to read-not to fill waste baskets with--and at the end of the year claim you have been unable to get any dividends on the investment, I want to have a talk with you. I have seen many men try the trade journal method of finding out, and I never knew one to fall down. If you can read any trade paper honestly for a year and not make it worth ten dollars to you there must be a kink in your intellect somewhere.

If you won't spend ten dollars, spend five, but when you make that cut in your appropriation remember you can't get ten dollars' worth of good by spending only five dollars, and the second five will pay you better dividends than the first five.

FRANK FARRINGTON.

Pharmaceutical Research and Literature

LOOKING BACKWARD.

DANIEL M. GROSH.

In the United States no distinction exists between the various terms of apothecary, druggist, chemist and pharmacist, and the absence of such a classification as is made in England, is frequently a cause of comment and confusion. In England the apothecary is part of the medical profession with the right to prescribe or practice medicine under certain restrictions, while chemists and druggists are those qualified and licensed to compound and dispense medicines and poisons. The pharmaceutical chemist passes a higher examination and is also classed higher than the druggist or chemist.

The various state laws of the United States have so jumbled up the statutes in this country that the terms are indiscriminately used and mean nothing. A country storekeeper calls himself a druggist by reason of his patents and proprietaries. The pharmacist may be a druggist and not a chemist. A laboratory worker in a manufactory calls himself a pharmaceutical chemist, while the term chemist may cover anything from the bottle washer to the analyst.

Weighed in the balance of progressiveness, as compared with trades of less educational and intellectual requirements, we are indeed found wanting and have little cause for self-congratulation or praise. History has certainly repeated itself in the recent legislative and ethical restrictions placed upon the pharmacist in some of our states and the very conditions that existed several centuries ago and caused one of the most remarkable sources of friction between the medical and dispensing professions still exist as a disturbing element.

The profession of pharmacy as practiced by apothecaries in England some two or three hundred years ago so encroached and trespassed upon the medical profession as to cause what was known as "The Great Physician-Apothecary War" and so remarkable and acute was this disturbance that it has been recorded in English history as a noteworthy occurance. It is interesting to note that at this period the number of apothecaries in London alone was around one thousand while in Paris there were only fifty, in Hamburg one and four or five in Stockholm and Copenhagen.

The frontispiece to the "Doctors' Dispensatory" published in 1657 pictorially represents the apothecary shops of the period and bears a striking resemblance to the drug store of our boyhood days, with bottles on the shelves, sections of drawers, mortars, pestles, stills and working apparatus.

The apothecary of the period was the only authorized pharmacopolist of those days and it was not until he invaded the provinces of his patron the physician that the friction took place which has been our heritage throughout the intervening years. The details of this so-called invasion and its consequences which led to the very peculiar position held by the different members of the medical profession in England at the present day, is little known outside of the professions, the agitation being confined to England solely.

In order to intelligently explain how the apothecary first came to overstep the boundaries of his profession and invade the medical profession, it is necessary to know a little of his early history. As the business of the physician increased, he found he

had not the necessary time to prepare the medicines for his patients so the "prescripts" were sent to persons whom they had taught the science of compounding and dispensing and whose business it was to keep and make up medicines for and on behalf of the doctor.

The "Accomplished Physician," 1679, states: "It is the apothecary's business to meddle with medicaments only and, in relation to their use, to follow the physician's prescript, and that he may be fitted to execute his office he must be instructed to know simples, to select the choicest, to prepare and compound his medicines." The office of the apothecary was originally imported from Italy and France by the "Pepperers" or grocers and the specialists in spices and aromatics were the apothecaries of those countries. The grocers of England were the chief dispensers of medicine down to 1607 when the "Company of Grocer-Apothecaries" was formed. Shortly after this the apothecaries separated from the grocers and were incorporated in 1616 as "The Master, Wardens and Society of the Art and Mystery of Pharmacopolites of the City of London" specifying that "no person except those of the Apothecaries Co. shall keep any apothecary shop or make, compound, administer, sell etc., any medicines, distilled waters, compound chemical oils, decoctions, syrups, conserves, pills, powders, unguents, plasters or otherwise."

The public, especially those frequently availing themselves of the doctors' services, gradually came to utilize the services of the apothecary directly (and these patrons were mostly people of wealth) without the sanction of the physician. A writer of the period states that "The man of the people seldom entered the shop of Master Apothecary, perhaps once in seven years, to purchase a pennyworth of wormseed or a little treacle to drive out the measles or some dregs and powder to make his sick horse a drench."

"The man of fashion, on the other hand, resorted to him habitually for every ailment real or imaginary, for his purgations, pills and glisters. If the least spot of morphew came on his face, he must have his oil of tartar, his lac Virgeniis, his camphor dissolved in verjuice, to fair his face. He likewise required drugs for other purposes, certain oils and waters, the cost of which were £10 each pint."

Davis, in his "Unity of Medicine" dates the invasion of the medical precincts from 1618, but towards the latter part of the century the rival body of unlicensed and unqualified practitioners arose in full force in the persons of the apothecaries. The advantages they possessed were not only their knowledge of the preparation of medicine, but were enabled to use for their own purposes the "prescripts" on their books.

Dr. Goddard, the physician to Cromwell, suggested that to combat the invaders, the physicians should do their own dispensing and recommended for their perusal the "London Dispensatory." In addition to this they sent their subordinates who were also their apothecaries, to officiate and thus the apothecary of England was originated and became in addition to his original and only proper occupation of a preparer and compounder, a sort of assistant to the physician. Here again having the advantage over the regular practitioner of understanding his medicines, which it would seem the physician did not, shortly the assistant became the competitor by reason of the public confidence and also of the confidence in his own powers.

Retaliation began in 1687 by the college voting to give their advice gratis to such sick poor as desired it and after much agitation on this score, in a few years it is recorded that not only the poor, but many rich and noble persons had taken advantage of the state of affairs to obtain free treatment. The apothecary likewise practiced without charging a fee and the physician dispensed without charging for medicines,

each clan encroaching upon the duties and prerogatives of the other, fighting through the courts and public prints with much blackguarding and vituperation.

The number of physicians in London even as late as 1795 was less than 100, while the apothecaries numbered upwards of 4000, and at last in 1815 the distinction between the physician and apothecary was for all practical purposes legislated by an act of parliament. Time and legislation did not, however, heal the breach or eradicate the old feeling of hostility and to this day the conditions of centuries ago exist to a large degree regardless of the efforts of many high minded men in both professions and the educational efforts of the journals of both professions. The close student and observer sees in the repetition of those early episodes a menace to the high standards so earnestly sought for by the true lover of these professions. The scope of this article is neither to criticise or condemn either the cause or effect but to endeavor to demonstrate that this is one of the problems time alone cannot be depended upon to solve or adjust.

THE ENZYMES AND THEIR IMPORTANCE IN PHARMACOGNOSY.*

By A. TSCHIRCH, Berne.

In his opening remarks Professor Tschirch recalled the fact that in an address entitled "The Future of Pharmacognosy," delivered in London on the occasion of the presentation of the Hanbury Medal to him (see C. & D., 1909, II., 548), he had considered it probable that the interest taken in the numerous synthetic remedies would be followed by "a return to drugs." This has taken place sooner than he expected, for quite recently the representatives of two important chemical-pharmaceutical factories informed him that interest in synthetic drugs is declining, and that there is a greater demand for drugs and preparations of them, especially for those which not only represent the active principles, but also the whole of the constituents. This fact draws once more greater attention to that group of remedies which have been employed for thousands of years, and the study of which is the aim of pharmacognosy.

Among the fundamental problems to be solved is the part played by the enzymes, not only in the synthesis of the active principles in the living plant, but also in the transformation of the living plant into a drug. For long it had been a problem for chemists to explain how the plant succeeds in executing at ordinary temperature the same reactions which can be performed in the laboratory only with the aid of energetic agents (strong acids or bases and relatively high temperatures), and how it is able with the utmost facility and in a very short time to perform syntheses requiring a considerable amount of energy, such as the building up of carbohydrates from carbonic acid and water and other photosyntheses. Formerly this ability was ascribed to the "vitality" residing in the living plant alone, and representing its particular source of energy for the accomplishment of this form of chemical work. Today, however, the inception and course of numerous reactions in the living substance, which were formerly incomprehensible, can only be grasped by the assumption of enzymatic processesthe enzymes have assumed a part of the functions formerly attributed to "vitality."

We are, however, in the same position with regard to the enzymes as with electricity we know its action and utilise it, but are ignorant of its real nature. Nobody has as yet held a pure enzyme in his hand, and, as with electricity, there are two points of view: (1) the minority see in enzymatic reactions only an exhibition of a special form of energy, and (2) others maintain that they are of a material nature. From * Eleventh International Congress of Pharmacy, September 17, 1913. Reprinted from Chemist and Druggist, through Am. J. Pharm.