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

Page 27 text:

September 12, 1942. June 21, 1945. Dear Posterity: Our first plunge into the pool of deeper education was an almost disappointing one. Contrary to our expectations of experiencing a sweat bath, we found that the first year in tuition proved that our intuition was fallible. College more closely resembled a milk bath. Math analysis was a subject moat of us found simple, even though there were functions other than trigonometric to think of. The value of pi was its effect on salivation, and the priceless ingredient of every product was the integration of the student. The world we existed in was bounded oy two cubes, both of which showed from one to six dots on each face. Dr. Fialkow, who struggled in teaching us the differentiation be- tween a three-letter -word -for -a -donkey and an elbow, was just about the nicest instructor we bad (possibly because we were all bigger than he). Mr. Harlan, who aided and abetted us in homicidal dealings with George VI s English, decided that a vacation ae necessary after he had trained us in our bout with rhetoric, and enlisted in the Navy. »e hope that the passage of time will lessen the clarity of his horrible memory of us and that after the war be will resume his teaching post. The ever abunaant, though subtle, wit which Mr. Harlan displaced transformed the otherwise dull s-bject of grammar into a pleasant one. Those who grasp- ed the subtleties and variegated allusions transmitted with a northern- ised southern accent, were thus compensated for their pains in rustling through the ripe leaves of Emery and filling in the work sheets of Kies et al. ( ' a often wondered what Al ' s last name was?). Contemporary Civilisation, which was definitely not contemporary and often Beemed contemptuous, officially took us away from our beloved campus, the ping-pong table, for four full, bard hours a week, and was tne class which first introduced us to the diversified pleasantries af- forded oy cutting. Sir. Lutnin ( nor a Ph. D.), a handsome oachelor full of pinkiBh health, and perpetually arrayed ij natty tweeds, to. , us in- to the Catacombs of Home and helped us dig under cover of the Dark Ages until we reached the light and air of the Twentieth Century. Of course, there were some we ry souls wbo somehow slumbered sonorously througnout the fifth repetition of all the erroneoua theories behind the system of Mercantilism. Often tne tides of educntxon threatened to engulf us, but those, who seemed to be in desperate need ere thrown Life Savers. The ceiling of the room muBt have been peeling paper, for almost constantly wads of paper fluttered down upon our beads. This is the only explana- tion which is plausible, for no one could believe teat a fellow-student might have been the causative agent. However, the occasional twang of a rubber band has continued to be unexplicable. Our first year of General Introductory Pharmacy was coached by Horace G. Carter, assisted by Professor Amsterdam. Professor Carter v s

Page 29 text:

an excellent lecturer, und what we learned from hie was almost adequate for all four years of Pharmacy. Professor Amsterdam, the-man-with-the- Billion-dollar-personality, supervised our lab work and expostulated the two fundamental principles of Pharmpcyj 1. add wuter and «.. boil. Professor Amsterdam also lectured in Metrology, also called The Study of Wastes and Measures. We were fined, according to e system we reluctantly agreed on, one cent for each error we made in class recita- tion, end the proceeds were to buy some treat for the entire class. Be fore we could spend it, the class treasurer and the $ 1.5 2 irere both at Camp Upton. Dr. Winner ' s course, Pharmacy Orientation, was just a one hour a week lecture on the evolution of Pharmacy from the Ebers Papyrus to the Cut-Rate Drug Store. Everyone who fathomed Dr. Winner ' s wit, and wasn ' t asleep after an important joke, automatically passed. General Inorganic Chemistry proved pleasant for those who didn ' t succumb to the gases. The formation of green precipitates left us deep in ecstasy and the evolution of HgS was simply out of this world, liich patience was shown by Mr. Anzelai, but he showed too much understanding when all but one of the reports handed in were identical except for the name of the owners. (We still don ' t know who the traitor was). After our first year of learning the fine points of table tennis from the more expert upperdassmen, we tackled the Sophomore Year, and found it more preponderous than expected. It took a long time to become accustomed to the daily treks up to the fifth and sixth floors. For the first time we realised what an F signified, and the difference exist- ing between the red and blue varieties. Kc accumulated so many F ' s that we forgot there was more to the alphabet. Elementary German could not be called difficult, but hitler him- self should only have heard the pronunciations of some of the students. Herr Ingenhuett tried to get us to say ich properly, but the hiccups forced us to render it n ik. It. Ingenhuett ' s mind must have been away at lunch during class, for frequently he would smack his lips. German was a very handy class to eat lunch in, for it was uzmoticeable when we recited with a mouth full of food. Latin, which is a dead language, almost dragged us along with it to the grave. The A ' s we occasionally received helped us stagger on- ward to the final exams. The subject had many of its hilarious moments, some of them afforded by the slapstick-like stumbling of Dr. Brown upon the base of the blackboard in room 53. Often Dr. Brown made some slight mistake in transferring matter from the textbook to the blackboard, and half an hour of debate was usually necessary to correct it. Dr. Brown also taught us the meaning of S.A. in Dispensing Phar- macy I. We made enough pills, troches, and suppositories to win an Army Navy E . An excellent machine helped us to turn out unlimited numbers of perfect troches, but we weren ' t able to make a cold-mold for suppos- itories. Within five years after graduation, we ' ll set up a factory for making all the suppositories that Dr. Brown can use. Incidentally, it ' s been heard that he is heading a campaign for the more widespread appli- cation of the rectal kind.