I was very much pleased with your answer in the Midland Druggist & Pharmaceutical Review. I want every part taken up in the next issue and embody in your own composition every phase of the subject and in fact add where you might be able to make it more emphatic.

Having the only drug store in a town, under the Miles policy, no other dealer in a small town can secure their agency. In this town there are two agencies. The Miles Co. explains that this agent (not a druggist) has a commercial rating and shows up on Dunn and Bradstreet as a druggist. This would appear to me as securing goods under false pretenses. I enclose a letter written by the Miles Company and would like to have every letter published to illustrate my point. Yours truly,

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Progressive Pharmacy.

The history of the O. S. P. A. for the last decade or more reveals the fact that this association has passed through its crucial period and is now, since its recent meeting at Cedar Point, really what it is called, the Pharmaceutical Association.

We admit that pharmacy is a reciprocal vocation: that is, we need the manufacturer, jobber, professor and likewise they need us and it is thus a condition of reciprocity, and this suggests the thought if there are not brains, energy and ability enough among our 2000 membership of the good, old Buckeye State pharmacists to man her offices and run her properly, let's change the name.

Many of you will remember that some years ago the chairmanship was wrung from the hands of pharmacists and the gavel placed in the hands of a professor of pharmacy and then in the hands of a jobber, and again, a manufacturer, which, in my estimation, was a mistake and we sometimes thought our ranks of druggists were not efficient, or able to man her own ship.

At a recent convention we shook off the errors of the past and gaveled one of our own as President. It is my hope that our body never will be unwise enough to depart from this custom. Not that we do not appreciate the co-operation of professors, jobbers and manufacturers, but that we are a pharma

ceutical association and should be governed by pharmacists of that membership.

We made another progressive step this year, and a very commendable one, in my judgment, by opposing and defeating the old committee selecting the officers for the ensuing year under which the convention could never deviate from their prescribed nominees and this organization may be congratulated on the progressive step, advancing from the old gag-election rule to the democratic plan, which it is hoped hereafter we will ever uphold and pursue.

Another progressive and needed step was made by the changing of dues from the paltry sum of four cents a week to ten cents a week, which is vitally needed to defray the expenses and carry on the work of our state organization. I will say any druggist had rather pay $1. a week, or $50 per annum and uphold this organization in a $50. a year effort and results than see it drag along in spasms of shortened financial breath, unable to get enough air down her old wind-pipe to keep healthy lungs and good circulation because of lack of financial nourishment.

To those who are practicing Pharmacy in this state and are desirous of seeing Pharmacy progress in her legal, moral and business aspects, I appeal to your judgment and justice of the situation to arise from your indifference, lack of interest and lethargy and assume your share of responsibility by joining this organization, and thereby lend a helping hand to the deserved need of pressing this organization forward and onward to a more perfect and progressive state and condition and thereby help yourself and your brother druggists' welfare and interests all through the state of Ohio.

Now, boys, we need an organizer, as proven by the experience of the past and the wisdom of any and all who give it any thought, and this we cannot have on $2. a year membership fees. Again, we must have for our future good, honest, clean, truthful and tactful enlightenment of facts beneficial to ourselves and the public in general, and this can be only obtained through sources and methods that will cost money, namely, our press, circular-letters and counter phamphlets, and these means cost money.

Now, Brother Druggists, the opinion of the majority of members of our recent meeting at Cedar Point, and you should

have been there for your own profit and protection, was that the druggists' organization of this State must, for its own good, have an organizer and must educate the public to the condition of its mutual interests with her druggists in order to have the political backing and sanction in matters vital to her moral and financial interests.

Therefore, Brother Druggists, let's rally and support loyally these seeming needs for at least one year and see if the additional $3.00 dues thus applied will not bring us splendid results and returns on this extra investment; then if it does not, under the democratic progress acquired by our State Body, if we deem we are not more than comparatively benefited by this experimental raise seemingly needed to carry through and perfect more agreeable relations for us all, we can then return to the old schedule of $2.00 per year or what we think advisable just as we have left it through the honest efforts and judgment of the majority assembled at this year's meeting.

Finally, accepting the fact that we have progressed in pharmacy in Ohio, and appealing for your earnest support in this year's change, I am yours for further progress in pharmacy in our State in its moral, professional and financial aspects.

C. S. BUCKLEY, Druggist.
Findlay, Ohio.

Precedent.

I am the coward's fortress and his friend,
When his poor courage trickles to an end
He pleads with me to guide his faltering feet-
He finds my ready consolation sweet.
That ofttimes I am wrong is naught to him-
He clings to me with desperation grim.
Each herd of elephants selects one wise
Old pachyderm to go ahead where lies,
The soft morass. They follow in his spoor,
The tracks grow deeper. E're they've crossed

the moor

The hindermost bogs down because he feared To tread the ground the others' feet had cleared.

And I am that the deep spoor in the mire;
Cold ashes in the place where once was fire,
O'er which the hidebound dotard chafes his
palms.

I am the soother of the weaklings' qualms.
Yet this remember: None has served mankind
Who did not leave my pleasing self behind.
-Strickland Gillilan.

Tolstoi's Vision.

The grandniece of the great Count Tolstoi had an interview with her uncle in 1910, and just now, in the event of a great war, it is published. The keynote of the interview is a vision which Tolstoi thus describes:

This is a revelation of events of a universal character which must shortly come to pass. Their spiritual outlines are now before my eyes. I see floating upon the surface of the sea of human fate the huge silhouette of a nude woman. She is with her beauty, poise, her smile, her jewels- a super-Venus. Nations rush madly after her, each of them eager to attract her especially. But she, like an eternal courtesan, flirts with all. In her hair ornaments, of diamonds and rubies, is engraved her name. "Commercialism." As alluring and bewitching as she seems, much destruction and agony follow in her wake. Her breath reeking of sordid transactions, her voice of metalic character like gold, and her look of greed are so much poison to the nations who fall victims to her charms.

This is, of course, allegorical, but its meaning is easily defined by passing events. That nude figure, Commercialism, is a powerful illustration of the spirit of the times. It is pleasure idealized into trade. The association cannot be hidden. In the vision, this luxurious female has three torches of universal corruption in her hands. The first torch represents the flame of war; the second the flame of bigotry and hypocrisy; the third torch is that of the law, the suppressor of all true tradition.

In the vision, Tolstoi makes the great conflagration of war begin in 1912, and to develop into destruction and calamity in 1913. "In that year," says Tolstoi, "I see all Europe in flames and bleeding. I hear the lamentations of huge battlefields." Then he goes on to say that in 1915 a strange figure from the northa new Napoleon-enters the stage of bloody drama. He is a man of little militaristic training, a writer or journalist, but in his grip most of Europe will remain until 1925; and after that there will be no empires or kingdoms, but the world will form the United States of Nations. The man who is to conduct this great change, Tolstoi says, is a Mongolian Slav, now living.

Certainly we have interesting days before us. The European war is not an event; it is an epoch. It starts a new age, and the feeling is a better age.-Editorial in Ohio State Journal.

Effectiveness demands a mind unincumbered with the useless and confusing; a mind, like a battleship, must be stripped for action. The diletante mind is ineffective because incumbered with so much that is unserviceable. Action is impeded, directness of purpose is lost. Herbert Edward Law.

DE

ABSTRACT OF PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

In speaking of the progress of the year, Mr. Beringer stated that association accomplishments had not measured up to his expectations but he felt some progress had been made. He referred to the revisions of the United States Pharmocopoeia and National Formulary which were undertaken by the members and would be completed before another year.

As to business conditions, the general European war has badly demoralized the drug business in this country as "probably no other class of merchants are more dependent upon foreign producers and foreign markets than the druggists and so the drug trade has more promptly and more extensively felt the interruption to normal trade conditions, the uncertainty of supplies and consequent skyrocketting of prices."

In discussing the membership, he spoke of the broad scope of work covered by the association and its many opportunities for advancing the interests of every branch of the trade-the retailer, wholesaler, manufacturer, educator, editor, scientist, tradesman, proprietor and clerk-all are served on an equal footing

in this association. "Despite the hetrogeneous character of our membership we are a homogeneous body."

"Pharmacy is a progressive calling requiring continuous study on the part of its followers to keep abreast of the ever accumulating knowledge applicable to their work. The American Pharmaceutical Association through its meetings and publications is the great teacher of pharmacists. Its mission has been defined as that of the great post-graduate school of American pharmacy. It is ever earnest in its efforts to make better pharmacists, better business men, knowing that the advance of the individual is the advance of the profession. Its moral influence, its example, its leadership are factors that cannot be measured by the money standards but should inspire every druggist in the American continent to be a member."

Two Local Branches were formed during the year, one at San Francisco and one at Columbus. The President offered two recommendations: to reduce the number of members necessary to form a local branch from 25 to 15; that the chairman of the Committee on Local Branches furnish bulletins suggesting topics of importance and general interest for discussions in local branches.

Prerequisite Laws:-The first step in professional progress is a legal requirement that every applicant must be a graduate of a school of pharmacy. "An anomalous situation exists in many states which are supporting a university with a department of pharmacy providing for a high type of students and then leaving the door to the practice of pharmacy, through the pharmacy board, wide open for the registration of druggists without any collegiate education."

He recommended that the present convention take some definite action on this subject instead of being content to pass resolutions, and suggested that agitation be begun in each state in which prerequisite laws are not now in force, looking to the enactment of such laws.

The pharmaceutical syllabus, of which a revised edition has just appeared, was first suggested to the American Pharmaceutical Association by Professor Wm. Procter, Jr., and since the forthcoming edition of the United States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary will mean a great change in pharmacy, Mr. Beringer thinks it an opportune time to issue a syllabus as per the views of pharmaceutical educators, and free from extraneous influences and offers a recommendation to Council to that effect.

The subject of standardizing pharmaceutical degrees was gone into quite extensively, reviewing the action of the New York Board of Regents in arbitrarily rating various colleges of pharmacy so far as their standing in that state is concerned, reducing the rank of some of the oldest and best known schools in the country and advancing some others known to be only second class. As the matter is one of national importance, a recommendation is offered that the subject be referred to a special investigating committee composed of the President and past Presidents to report at the next annual meeting.

In discussing legislation Mr. Beringer referred to the over-zealous efforts of

uninformed people in attempts to modify or create legislation which concerns the druggist, and assailing the druggist's honor and integrity. He points out that much of the best legislation now in effect is the work of the druggists themselves.

As to the food and drugs law, the trade and laity both endorse the fundamental principles of that law, which has done much to raise the standard of business in many ways, but he deplores the vacillating policy of officials having in charge its enforcement, as regards the label requirements and publication of the guaranty clause, recently abolished, and the consequent loss of property to the trade in discarded labels. He also deplores the methods of prosecutions, based on technicalities. He urges the associaion to unite with other trade organizations to secure an amendment to the postal laws regarding the mailing of non-volatile, non-explosive or non-corrosive poisons.

Mention was made of the Harrison Bill having passed the Senate, and that while some portions of the law were not as might be most desired, the better element of pharmacists were willing to

submit to no small annoyance to themselves in order to secure the control of those drugs proscribed by this measure.

The status of pharmacists in the government service has been under consideration by this Association for the past several years in an effort to secure a commissioned rank and remuneration for pharmacists in the Army and Navy. The Hughes-Bacon bill does not confer this rank and on the suggestion of the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the House, the recommendation is made that a bill covering this point be introduced into the next Congress and pushed vigorously.

The Bichloride situation was reviewed, the speaker stating that The American Pharmaceutical Association had undoubtedly already exercised its influence for public good.

In regard to the establishment of headquarters for the Association the President urged "well defined ideas as to the actual needs of the Association, the character of its past and future services to society, the scope of the work that it is desired to accomplish in the way of research and education, the value of such investigation to commercial interests and to the public welfare, the character and size of buildings and of grounds, the probable cost of establishing such a headquarters and the cost of its

maintenance.'

as

"The formation of a Bureau of Education and Information, for the collection of data, valuable information as to drugs, such source of supply, preparation, proper uses and dosage and to prepare and distribute to the trade reliable information on trade questions and to educate the press and the public to the proper duties of pharmacists and to give wider publicity to popular information relating to our calling and the public welfare.

A museum, library and drug plant gardens should be provided for also, and ample funds for maintenance be forthcoming, or better still, an endowment to provide such funds.

This led to the consideration of an endowment for pharmaceutical research which is so much needed in this country.

What shall we do with our Ex-Presidents? was answered by the suggestion to form of them an Advisory Council to which may be referred subjects

calling for mature judgment and wise consideration.

It was suggested that the 1913 Year Book be published at once, and that a code of ethics be embodied therein.

"The Committee on Publication have been confronted this year with unusual difficulties. The illness of our Secretary and Editor compelled him to present his resignation, which was the most serious misfortune that could have possibly overtaken our Association. Every member of this Association appreciates

GEO. M. BERINGER,

Retiring President, A. Ph. A

the earnestness, the fidelity, the sincerity and ability exhibited by Dr. James H. Beal in the discharge of his official positions and the success of our Journal must largely be attributed to his indefatigable efforts. The Association should express in no uncertain terms its high appreciation of the services rendered by Secretary and Editor Beal.

"I believe that the time has come when the A. Ph. A. must arrange for the work of its Committee on Publication to be carried on under a more comprehensive business plan than has yet been attempted. The Committee should be given considerable more latitude than other Committees because of the char

acter of the work assigned to it and the business problems it has to contend with. During the year, it has been necessary, at times, for the Acting-Secretary to advance large sums of money to prepay postage, the expenses of the distribution of the Year-Book, for clerical assistance, etc., etc. The Association should not place the burden of carrying its finances upon any individual."

"I would recommend that the Committee on Publication be given more extended powers. That it be authorized to organize an effective editorial staff and clerical force to satisfactorily carry on the work of the publication office."

"That the appropriation for the use of the Committee be paid to the Committee in quarterly sums in advance. That the Committee be authorized to select one of its members as treasurer who shall disburse its funds on vouchers approved by the contracting official and countersigned by the Chairman. That the accounts of the Committee be subject to the approval of the Auditing Committee of the Association and of the Council."

The National Formulary will be issued before the next convention and to advertise it properly it was suggested that an epitome be prepared, also that a Committee on Propaganda be appointed to prepare literature, and distribute same through the members, explaining formulas, doses, etc.

On the question of reform in Convention proceedings, the President was not in sympathy with the suggestion to omit the preliminary speeches and addresses of welcome, the formal installation of officers nor the entertainment features. He felt that the former added to the dignity of the occasion and gave the Association that public recognition which it deserved, and that many members who made a vacation out of the convention would not attend if the entertainment features were dropped.

A number of suggestions and recommendations regarding amendments to the by-laws were made and the subsequent action of the Association on these will be shown in later reports.

The address covered fully the many activities in which the Association is interested, and all were handled in a masterly manner.