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

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is not the choicest academic assignment, but he is glad to say that it has its compensations. To him comes, instead of prettily disguised phials of HgCk a cheerful invitation to have his picture taken — FREE, for nothing — not by lethal radium rays, but by harmless actinic rays that show the dimples. Surely, classwork is short; friendship is long. To all seventy-six students of the Class of ' 52 (I take no note of casual- ties, few or many) I extend my heartiest wishes for a long, profitable, and gratifying career in pharmacy — one of the great professions. May your customers never have to say: Morituri te salutamus (underscore foreign words for italics). The Class of 1952 and I met for the first time in the Dispensing I. arena. Two years of combat at C.U.C.P. had made seasoned veterans of the survivors of the group and from the sound of the first bell on it was touch and go as to who would emerge the victor. The class was fully pre- pared to do battle and was led in each foray by General Scherman who conducted such intricate maneuvers as presenting my new-born son with a Defense Bond just as I was about to pass out the papers for the first examination. Would I ever be able to help make good pharmacists from raw material such as confronted me? In the Dispensing Laboratory, the class contributed to the melee by presenting me with students who were still preparing products for Tech. II.; who prepared ointments on the desk tops instead of a slab; who devel- oped fainting spells whenever a troche prescription appeared; who kept insisting that a pretzel shaped suppository was an acceptable form; who used the sweat from their brows as an excipient for tablet triturates; who chose incineration as the correct procedure for preparing ointments; who conformed to the rule of never leaving unlabeled prescriptions on the desk top by hiding them in the trash drawers; who thought nothing of heating liquids in graduates over a direct flame or treating a delicate prescription balance like a playground see-saw.

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The distraction of chemistry has no sooner dewitted him than com- plications set in. A rash of math shows on one side of his face; on the other appear the pustules of zoology. Deep in his innards rumbles the conflict of intestinal flora with indigestible botany. Now is English a forsaken maiden, a weeping outcast, a marooned ideal. But the cause of effective communication is not wholly lost. Gone is the smile of the English teacher, gone the suave voice, gone the chummy manner. In their place come the grim jaw, the strident pitch, the barbed question. Mr. Freshman, what is a simple subject? English, replies the student confidently. English? echoes the puzzled teacher. Sure, reaffirms the student. If you don ' t think so, you ought to teach Contemporary Civilization. The themes pour in, and the sweat of the English teacher pours out. Punctuation, my good friends, is largely functional. Observe the func- tion and you can ' t help punctuating correctly. And again: Sentences must express a complete thought, explicitly or implicitly. Mr. Freshman, what do I mean by ' implicitly ' ? Ripples of uneasiness run through the class. The barb leaps from head to head but strikes no spark. For the thirteenth time I ask you: what do I mean by ' implicitly? ' Aw nuts! comes the squelching answer from a voice just under the window. Now we ' ll take up paragraph development, says the teacher. Out of the struggle eventually emerges someth ing like results. There are a great many interesting and well-written research papers. Frequently the discussion in class is eager, intelligent, resourceful, and enlightening. Frequently the class program clicks, and time swooshes by on rocket wings. Comes the end of the school year. The teacher now sees that in spite of the competition of professional subjects, English, that bastard cul- tural subject, has not been totally neglected. The students have not been lacking in appreciation but merely in time and strength to do so many things in so short a year. They have wisely made a practical adaptation to the stresses of a rigorous professional training. Resignedly the teacher sends his freshman students off on their head- long pursuit of sophomore quantitative analysis and pharmaceutical tech- nology. Hopefully he turns to a blank page in his record book and begins to make up the class roster of the incoming group. Years later he writes reminiscences for APOTHEKAN. And as he does so, he must admit that teaching English at Pharmacy

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And then there were those who could never locate their desks in the laboratory because of the mass of hair hanging over their eyes; who forgot to put blades in their razors when shaving; who wore luminous purple ties with green sport. shirts under laboratory jackets stained with portions of the prescriptions of the ages and those who thought that compounding talent was measured in terms of the number of pieces of dirty equipment strewn over the desk top. Lecture periods were additional sources of revelation and grey hair. I could never quite shake the feeling that Baskin knew the answers to the myriad questions he asked nor could I decide whether Kaufman ' s grin was a salute or a silent Bronx cheer. Trobitzen and Dimendberg were forever dashing into class ten minutes after the bell, whereupon the former would begin copying notes from some previous lecture and the latter would promptly fall asleep. The remaining portion of ' each lecture for the balance of the year was devoted to the continuous struggle over the techniques involved in the various medication forms and the intricacies of incompatibilities sea- soned with discussions on the great need for proper professional conduct in pharmacy and attempts at convincing Posner that fifty cents was an inadequate price for I 00 suppositories. It was gratifying to see the gradual change which took place in the class which resulted in the emergence of students who could be considered as capable representatives of our college in the profession of pharmacy. I knew the turning point had been reached when the typical comment changed from, But that ' s not the way my boss does it in the store to All right, I ' ll do it your way . . . here. How could I have ever enter- tained any doubts about a class which was capable of such great progress in such a short span of time! Looking back over the few short years of our association together I can think of many pleasant reminiscences that will have a lasting place in my memories. From start to finish, it was a sincere pleasure to have known the members of the Class of 1 952. May the many enterprises you success- fully undertook at C.U.C.P. carry forward with you to many years of con- tinuous good fortune and happiness in pharmacy.