ratio  with  the  population,  has  been  greatly  reduced  by  the  trade  in  simple
drugs  and  articles  used  for  medical  and  technical  purposes  being  made
free,  for  since  then  there  have  grown  up  besides  the  pharmacies  numerous
drug  stores,  and  their  number  in  course  of  years  has  grown  so  that  at
the  present  time  there  are  on  an  average  about  three  retail  drug  stores
for  every  pharmacy. The  editor  quotes  at  some  length  from  a  paper
recendy  published  by  Dr. Springfeld,  a  physician  in  the  service  of  the
Prussian  government,  from  which  the  following  clearly  illustrates  the
present  condition  of  German  pharmacy :  "  Since  the  separation  of  chem-
istry from  pharmacy  the  centralization  of  the  production  of  medicinal  pre-
parations in  the  hands  of  the  pharmaceu tic-chemical  manufactories,  the
labors  of  the  pharmacist  have  been  transferred  from  industrial  to  mercan-
tile. The  professional  apothecary  of  the  past  has  been  succeeded  by  the
trader. Even  the  prescription  work  has  been  restricted  and  has  deterior-
ated in  scientific  value,  since  the  wholesale  industry  succeeded  in  prepar-
ing medicaments  all  ready  to  be  dispensed  and  capable  of  preservation  for
almost  any  length  of  time. The  dispensing  apothecary  has  thus  been
largely  converted  into  an  automaton,  and  the  German  pharmacy  has  be-
come incapacitated  for  the  training  of  apprentices."

Among  the  expedients  and  reforms  proposed  in  order  to  ameliorate
these  conditions  in  some  degree,  the  hope  is  still  entertained  that  the
science  of  forensic  and  food  chemistry  may  bring  back  life  into  the  quiet
laboratory  of  the  apothecary,  be  an  incentive  to  love  of  profession,  and
raise  the  estimation  of  the  apothecary  in  the  eyes  of  the  public. But,  ob-
serves the  editor  of  the  "  Pharm. Review,"  in  a  foot-note,  "  this  alterna-
tive, devised  and  striven  for  until  now  by  the  best  men  in  the  profession
here  and  abroad,  cannot  be  hoped  to  be  realized  for  the  apothecary,  con-
sidering the  activity  in  medical  circles  and  the  rapidly  advancing  develop-
ment in  bacteriology,  which  is  so  closely  affiliated  and  enters  so  deeply
into  the  biological  and  physiological  sciences. 