Albany College of Pharmacy - Alembic Yearbook (Albany, NY)

Page 16 text:

F5112 Qlullegr A College of Pharmacy is supposed to educate its students in all that pertains to the care, handling, preparing and dispensing of drugs and medi- cines, on the orders and prescriptions of physicians, and to supplying the public with such of these agents as maybe necessary for their comfort and use, without the advice of a physician. The calling of a pharmacist differs from all other pursuits in iwhich men engage. The substances in which he deals are potent for good or injury. Many of the most valuable medicines are active poisons, when improperly used, and it is necessary for the protection of the public that a knowledge of these agents be obtained. This education includes Chemistry, the science of the composition of matter, Pharmacy, the art of preparing and compounding medicines, and Materia Medica, that branch of medical study which deals with drugs, their sources, preparation and uses. These are the major subjects which the student must thoroughly comprehend. There are minor subjects, some knowledge of which is necessary. These are Physics, the study of the laws and phenomena of nature, but especially of forces and the general properties of matter, botany, the science of plantsg Physiology, the science which treats of the functions of living organisms, pharmaceutical arithmetic, relating mainly to percentage and proportion, pharmaceutical latin, relating to the written prescription, pharmaceutical jurisprudence, relating to the laws gov- erning the conducting of pharmaciesg and now a knowledge of business methods. These are minor subjects, but this does not mean that they are of little value, only that they are of less value than the major subjects. T Of these subjects, organic Materia Medica and Botany seem to be the least attractive to students. 'The reason for this apparent lack of interest may possibly lie in the fact that the substances in these two courses are familiar to everyone, they are in daily contact with them and why should they not know all about them? ' This is a false conception of these agents. I have yet to know of a student who honestly begins investigation along these lines, who does not soon become intensely interested in roots, rhizomes, barks, leaves, seeds and plants. An examination of phytolacca shows a formation of its cellular and fibrous tissues similar to and yet decidedly different from pareira. The leaf of digitalis. so very distinctive in its wooly surface and boldness of its framework, valerian and veratrum, both rhizomes and rootlets, of almost equal size and shape and color, yet with distinctions enough to at once differentiate them. I8

Page 15 text:

LECTURE HAALL

Page 17 text:

The plant world is possessed of life and activity, is constructed in accordance with fixed laws, is capable of producing only its kind, each plant retaining its essential characteristics and capable of being classified just as exactly as the animal kingdom. Wfhy should they not be intensely interest- ing to all who make a study of them? . ls it not the way one approaches these subjects that determines their interesting phase or the opposite? Let one enter upon these courses with honest and persevering effort and they will soon become as attractive as other branchesof pharmaceutical education. A. B. H. As the years have passed, as I have perisisted in my attempt to teach a minimum of microscopy and pharmacognosy to a maximum of students in pharmacy, a query has with ever-increasing frequency forced itself to the front until it has at last occupied the head of the line-and that interro- gation, that erotem which marks our occasional meetings, says with ever- increasing emphasis- is it worth while? Annually Qwith the addition of a few hardy perennials Q I see before me a goodly class of sensible young people, a majority of them direct from the high school, who have come to our school avowedly to make preparation for their life work. So-me of these earning the money themselves, either in whole or in part, to pay for their tuition, others at the cost of more or less sacrifice on the part of parents or friends. Year by year is enacted the selfsame tragedy, or, so far as microscopy is concerned, the same old comedy by a hundred or more intelligent young people who with but a few excep- tions seem to care for but little ibut getting byf' of escaping as easily as possible from the censorious teacher who has been set over them. Failing to realize that the mediocre is the enemy of the best, that the world is crowded with individuals whose whole life is one steady round of getting byg that in every walk in life the majority of persons manage to satisfy themselves with doing work that will enable them to get by,', with those who are content if their work vvill let them draw their salaries and not be dropped from the pay roll, that the great successes in this life are as a rule the result of earnest, honest effort rather than the possession of genius, they are satisned to be far less than they could or ought to be. 19