Various

“ Chemist’s prescribing is quite as loudly complained of by the doctors, and when I read some of the letters and comments which appear in the medical journals I am almost tempted to fear that for once medicine is thinking more of its share of the pecuniary reward, than caring for suffering humanity. ”

“ It all turns on the spirit which inspires the entire collegiate body, on the mental attitude of the university as a whole. This brings us at once to the danger which I think confronts all our large universities to-day, and which I am sure confronts that university which I know and love best. We are given over too much to the critical spirit and we are educating men to become critics of other men instead of doers of deeds themselves. ”

“ Faith and hope, and belief, enthusiasm, and courage are the qualities to be trained and developed in young men by a liberal education. Youth is the time for action, not criticism. A liberal education should encourage the spirit of action, not deaden it. We want the men whom we send out from our universities to count in the battle of life and in the history of their time, and to count more and not less because of their liberal education. ”

“ Concerning the right of any person, or body of men, to coin a new word, or to use one already in existence, for the purpose of expressing a new idea, or removing an ambiguity, there can be no question, provided only that the selected word be appropriate and in harmony with the genius of the language. ”

“ The result is that in all of our institutions of learning the requirements become more stringent and by the time graduation arrives we see the survival of only the very best men. We find the same classes of men throughout life that we find in college—we find men of energy and slothfulness, men devoted to pleasures and by nature politicians, men of ability of construction and men of power in criticism. While at College the training to-day is chiefly analytical and the result is that men are prone to examine everything closely and some even learn to take delight in tearing things to pieces. ”

“ There is no occasion to disguise the fact that we do not get as many or possibly as good papers sent to the Conference as we should like, but when we consider the needs of a weekly press and the number of small societies which absorb in the aggregate a large number of papers, our experience need cause us neither surprise nor alarm. I should like, however, to ask many of those who are doing original work and writing papers in connection with pharmacy to consider whether there is any place so suitable for them to be read as at these meetings. ”

“ We have built up a vast social and industrial system, [43] and have carried civilization to the highest point it has ever touched. That system and that civilization are on trial. Grave doubts and perils beset them. Everywhere to-day there is an ominous spirit of unrest. ”

“ Then again it is deep rooted in the habits of the English people to expect the doctor to supply the medicine he has prescribed, and any change can only come about by the slow process of educating the patients and by the exhibition of good will and feeling between medicine and pharmacy. Before it can happen universally there is no doubt that pharmacy must have acquired such a professional standing and education as will enable it to perform its delicate and confidential function with the tact and reserve which is the outcome of prolonged training. ”

“ But there are innumerable small accidents, and little ailments to which humanity is liable, which quite legitimately come within the province of pharmacy to treat, and the pharmacist, if he is wise, is a much safer man to treat these than the clergy and the laity, who are ever ready to prescribe for each other upon any and all occasions. The best and wisest exponents of medicine admit this right on the part of pharmacy, and welcome the service which is rendered by it to sufferers. ”

“ It is not a practical education which we seek in this regard, but a liberal education. Our search now and here is not for an education which shall enable a man to earn his living with the least possible delay; but for a training which shall develop character and mind along certain lines.
“To all her students alike it is Harvard’s duty to give that which will send them out from her gates able to understand and to sympathize with the life of the time. ”

“ The part of the work under criticism is a mere series of definitions, illustrated in a highly unsuccessful manner, and frequently losing sight of the requirement that a definition must include the whole of the thing defined and nothing else. It is very naive to say: “All organic matter containing a green coloring matter called chlorophyl, belongs to the vegetable kingdom,” without directly stating that no other class does, which statement would leave out the fungi, a part of the definition of which is that they contain no such matter. ”

“ The mistake (a very common one) which pharmacy is making, is that it wants the reward before it has made the effort and suitably equipped itself for the service. I exhort the pharmacist of the future to be unremitting [53] in his efforts to raise himself and his calling to a professional status, and then I predict for him that in the natural course the dispensing of medicines will come to him. ”

“ The fundamental ideas upon which photography is based are very old—older than the Christian era, certainly. They depend upon two facts: First—that light, in passing through a small opening, produces an inverted image in a dark chamber. Imagine, for instance, that you are in a dark chamber, outside of which is an object; that there is in the chamber a small hole a sixteenth or an eighth of an inch in diameter, and that you have in this dark chamber a piece of paper. ”

“ To call a stem an “axis” and a root an “axis” of a different kind, is to perpetuate a term at the expense of all regard for that accuracy which is the most important element of scientific language. Such subjects as venation are of prime importance to the pharmacist, and so far from restricting the teachings to several of the more important terms presented in ordinary text-books on botany, the classification should be elaborated in its fullest details. ”

“ But it is with societies, as with individuals, they tend to decay, and already, more than once we have the alarm: the Conference is on its last legs! I do not believe it, as I feel sure it fulfils a purpose in the realm of pharmacy which is too important for the Conference to be left to decay, and if we neglect the trust which has been handed down to us, our successors will revive it. ”

“ Instead of having a lens there in the front of the camera, as was formerly the practice, it is perfectly possible to get the picture with a small opening, say an eighth or sixteenth of an inch in diameter, and, furthermore, that is the most perfect picture you can get in a camera—a picture without a lens. Now, that is a strange statement, and perhaps in these days it may appear a little wild; but (exhibiting a photo about 5 × 7) there is a picture made with an opening not larger than a pinhole, and it is a good deal better than many of the pictures taken by the amateurs to-day. ”

“ To enable us carry out this resolution, our Alumni Association has extended their characteristic hospitality by inviting us to their monthly lectures, therefore why should we not show our appreciation of their kindly feeling, by taking advantage of the opportunity, and thus not only serving to further make these meetings enthusiastic and successful ones, but also demonstrating to our fraternal friends that sociability is not a lost art among us. ”

“ One of our most successful graduates is Aug. W. Brater, who together with his brother is conducting a cosy pharmacy on Park Ave., cor. 76th St. Brater is as energetic as ever and devotes no little time in making an exquisite window display, which is the admiration of the neighborhood’s fair ones.
Arthur Bastedo is indeed quite a genius, for besides attending to his duties with Caswell & Massy, he has found sufficient time to dissect several times a week at the P. and S. College, which will be an advantage to him when he commences the study of medicine. ”

“ In looking around the closet where these pictures were exposed—where these plates were stored—he found that for some reason or other the bottle of mercury had been broken, and he tried almost every imaginable material in the closet, and at last it struck him it might be mercury. Well, he put some mercury on the plate and he ruined it. “Well, no,” he says, “it is not mercury but mercury in a very fine state. I wonder if it is the Vapor of Mercury?” He tried it and found that it was. That led to the development of the daguerreotype. ”

“ The steam engine, the telegraph, the telephone and the photograph are four of the grand inventions which the century has produced, and I think every intelligent person should learn something about them. ”

“ The best vehicle to-day for making positive prints is albumen with chloride of silver.
It is found that if you take a mixture of gelatine and bichromate of potassium, and put into the mixture some pigment and expose it under a negative where the light acts, the gelatine is made insoluble and holds the pigment, and where the light does not act the gelatine is still soluble and can be washed away. Here is such a picture and it is very interesting—“In Camp.” The shadows in that picture are on the white paper underneath.
Here are a couple of pictures of silver, two Bavarian pictures. ”

“ Theoretically it is undoubtedly better that dispensing shall be done by the pharmacist, and prescribing by the medical man, but when we pharmacists claim this as a right, and accuse medicine of unjustly usurping our functions, it is well for us to remind ourselves that medical men, although they may not now as frequently as of old take the degree of L. S. A., are the direct and legitimate successors of the old apothecary and that the dispensing of medicine was their legitimate function. ”

“ This is a very comfortable attitude, but it is one of all others which a university should discourage instead of inculcating. Moreover, with such an attitude of mind towards the world of thought and action is always allied a cultivated indifference than which there is nothing more enervating.
“The time in which we live is full of questions of the deepest moment. There has been during the century just ending the greatest material development ever seen. The condition of the average man has been raised higher than before, and wealth has been piled up beyond the wildest fancy of romance. ”

“ Apropos of the New Year, it is seemingly proper that we should endeavor to surpass our former records by carrying out such resolutions that we may deem proper both for the welfare of ourselves and the gratification of our associates. ”

“ In about 1870 it was conceived that you could make an emulsion of these peculiar compounds of silver—these sensitive silver compounds—that you could make an emulsion that you could pour upon the plate and produce a picture just when you pleased, and it was found that by mixing the chloride that produces the sensitive material in one portion of your collodion and putting nitrate of silver into another portion of the collodion, in certain proportions, you could produce a collodial emulsion. ”

“ Louis Waefelaer, the assistant chemist, is a young mechanical engineer of high standing and has sole charge of the mechanical department. Every department is scrupulously clean and neat, and the employees think Mr. Schultz is one of the best and most liberal men to work for, for he spares no expense in investigations and experiments calculated to improve the accuracy and purity of the products of his works, and the safeguards against accident to employees are both numerous and well devised. ”

“ As a synopsis, or summary of knowledge, intended to guide the teacher instructed in the subject, these eighty-two pages will answer fairly [45] well; but to enable a student who is proceeding de novo to gain a knowledge of structural botany for the purposes of pharmacognosy, we can see nothing but failure. Herein we criticise the book, not specifically the author. Publishers’ books are not always authors’ books. It is doubtful if any publisher can be found willing to publish as a business enterprise, a perfect text-book of Botany for pharmaceutical students. ”

“ Criticism is healthful, necessary, and desirable, but it is always abundant and infinitely less important than performance. There is not the slightest risk that the supply of critics will run out, for there are always enough middle-aged failures to keep the ranks full if every other resource should fail. ”

“ There was another Frenchman, named Devique Delaroche, who made a still more curious statement. In 1760 he wrote a book in which his hero is wrecked upon a strange coast, and the spirits of that place showed him how to make pictures, as he called it, “painted by nature.” It is not quite sure what he means, but his words are something like these: “You know,” says his guide, “that rays of light are reflected from different bodies and form pictures. The spirits have sought to fix these pictures, and have a subtle matter by which these pictures are formed in the twinkling of an eye. ”

“ Ptolemy, over two thousand years ago, noted that beeswax was bleached in sunlight, and the old Greeks noted that the gems which we call opal and amethyst lost their colors when exposed to sunshine. These are some of the first and most rudimentary notions upon the actions of light, and we have no definite statements about making pictures without light. The Chinese have a tradition—and they have a great many curious ones that are often founded on facts—that the sun makes pictures upon the ice of lakes and rivers. ”