Columbia University College of Pharmacy - Apothekan Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Jnird iJjt ear I had never given much thought to life insurance before taking Organic Chemistry, but now I am a firm believer in it. The standard uniform of the day in the organic lab was shock helmet, aspirator, bullet proof apron, and a rabbit ' s foot. Even so, students were carried out of the lab every day, horribly mutilated. I can still remember that chlorosulphonic acid should not be added to water unless the student has suicidal inten- tions. Almost as terrifying as the chemicals was the equipment we used. This terror manifested itself in the knowledge that every piece of equipment used was a piece broken. To a laymen entering our lab, it would appear as though a neurotic glass blower had gone crazy and festooned the room with a weird assortment of his handiwork. To offset the tumult in the lab we were given a nice, quiet, soothing lecture conducted by Professor Whiz-bang DiSomma, the world ' s fastest blackboard writer this side of Tibet. The class would assemble, and a lab instructor would take the attendance. Then a gun would go off and the race, I mean the lecture, was on. For a while we thought we could catch him, but as the weeks passed we realized he had won. Because of the terrifying reports that the upperclassmen had given us about Pro- fessor Kanig, the class entered Room 10 for the first time a little reluctantly. In fact, a few of us were dragged in by Pete. But after listening to Joe Kanig talk for a while, we came to the conclusion that he was human. That is, until he handed out the first set of prescriptions. Then we weren ' t so sure anymore. To think that we felt that tech lab was a rat race when all the time it was like a Florida vacation compared to dispensing. We always wondered why the floors of the lab were so clean and we soon realized that since each student stands in his own puddle of sweat, the floors are washed constantly. The prescriptions that we compounded were real doozies. During one period we might be asked to make, enteric-coated Quassia suppositories, white pills, (containing charcoal), potassium permanganate troches, and mercury mass in a tube. This was to be done in a four hour period, two of which were taken up by Professor Kanig telling us what we were going to do wrong. However the part of the course that we dreaded most was the practicals. Armed with a U.S. P., N.F., and five shiny spatulas we set out to prove that we were not as ignorant as out previous two years had shown. Despite the ner- vous breakdowns and the years lost by worry, we can still say that this course taught us the most in our four years at Columbia. Just when we thought it was going to be a normal year, up pops Mortormorly ' s uncle with a little gem called Physiology. As soon as we saw ' Doc ' we prepared for the second largest shaft in the world. Some may call this course a science, but still I contend that it was butchery. Frogs that were pithed, decapitated, de-muscled, dissected, and generally in pretty bad shape were strewn all over the lab. The garbage can in front looked like something Jack-the-Ripper might have kept in the front of his house. I personally think that a frog did Prof. Halsey a dirty turn once and this was his way of getting even.

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sive one we had ever taken. Since we weren ' t permitted to handle the instruments we couldn ' t break anything! We worked in teams, and while one partner turned dials and looked scientific, the other partner made carbon copies of a previous term ' s report. The most embarrassing outgrowth of this reasearch was the fact that we sometimes had to explain results for experiments that were not on the lab schedule. Now that we were raking analytical chemistry, we again came in contact with our interviewer, Prof. Liberman and his son Herbert. In the freshman year, we always wondered what the students were doing in that little lab around the corner. It looked intriguing but WOWEE! All those who were color-blind or who couldn ' t tell a pre- cipitate from a hole in the ground are now prosperous plumbers. We were taught that accuracy and precision were the watchwords, and finagling the byword of our year in analytical chemistry. When in doubt about the fourth place in a determination, we found that multipling the room number by our age and dividing our results by ' Herbert ' s ' age always did the trick. We also found rhat the end point in a titration was a point of no return. We soon were able to tell by the color of the solution how many extra drops we had added. Pipetting cleaning fluid was forbidden, for several students dissolved their bridgework by being over zealous in their work. Reports were forbidden to be written during lab hours, so it became necessary to take frequent trips to the writing room, better known as the sixth floor men ' s room. We always wondered where the girls wrote their reports! The work in the pharmacy lab concerned itself with the lost and somewhat anti- quated art of the manufacture of galenicals. Who would ever think that percolation was anything but a method of making coffee? It was in this lab that we were first introduced to the rat race . However, a method was soon devised to overcome this obstacle. Several conscientious students would prepare the product and affix the label with non-drying glue. After the preparation was marked it would disapper mysteriously, only to turn up ?.gain on another desk with another label. Somehow we felt that the instructors frowned upon this procedure, but it seemed to prove certain fallacies in the marking system. It seems that the same product would get different marks ranging from fifty to one- hundred depending upon which student was supposed to have prepared it. Aside from the required preparations, several extra products were manufactured in the lab by am- bitious students. But despite this display of ingenuity on our part, several of the class were asked to pack up their teabags and distilleries and leave the lab. Thus ended our second year at pharmacy school. Those that remained were hardened to the trials before them and the tribulations to come.

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It was bad enough to mutilate these harmless little creatures, but we were also required to set up and use an infernal machine known as the kymograph. We worked in groups of three. There was a drum-smoker (much milder), a kymograph setter-upper, and a butcher. Unfortunately the poor ignorant frog muscle never took Physiology and didn ' t know the proper responses to elicit, so we were forced to use the finger con- stant . By dipping our finger in acetic acid and then hitting the needle, we always got a perfect response to the Turck reflex. Tetanus, clonus, and treppe were easy prey for our educated fingers and soon we were recording responses that the frog never knew he had. With a strong stomach, an experienced finger, and a senior ' s lab reports we managed to pass. I will always remember the guided tour of Central Park that we took on our first day in Pharmacogosy. Until then, when I strolled with a girl through rhe park, I took notice of the elms and the oaks. Now I realize what I was missing. I don ' t think that Professor Pokorny will forget that day either, for it was then that one of nature ' s own, bestowed a trophy upon him as we stood beside the witch hazel bush. We took three other courses that year but not too much can be said about them (safely). Professor Chavkin ' s course on merchandising was strictly one of opinion and as long as the opinion was his, you couldn ' t fail. Then their was the I ' m under 21, the conttact is void course given by Dapper Dan Kravitz. Most of the time here was spent sleeping behind Lilly ' s accounting and record system during the lecture. Last of all was Mr. Weingold ' s course on Inorganic medicinals. All that I learned from this course was that every item in the USP, a nd NF is either efflorescent, deliquescent, hygroscopic or just doesn ' t give one good G.. damn. Thus ended the third year. Many were missing from our ranks, but we had heard rumors that seniors never fail, so we faced the prospect of our senior year undaunted. ZJ-oarlk iji ear This was to be the year that we were to correlate what we had learned the past three years. Unfortunately, along with this correlation process we were given a few ( ? ) more courses such as, Bacteriology, Organic Medicinals, Dispensing III, and First Aid. The course that we enjoyed the most was organic medicinals because of inter- esting content, general tests, and most of all its lack of class hours. Once a month the Dean (our instructor) managed to put in a guest appearance. At these visits reams of printed material were distributed, listing proprietaries. What appealed to us most were the genetal exams, for nothing specific was asked. It was a great relief to hear that we didn ' t have to memorize the long organic formulas; all we had to do was recognize them for exams.