The American Medical Association and the United States pharmacopoeia / a reprint of the pamphlets of H.C. Wood, Alfred B. Taylor, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the National College of Pharmacy ; with a rejoinder addressed to the professions of medicine and pharmacy of the United States, by Edward R. Squibb.

  • E. R. Squibb
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The American Medical Association and the United States pharmacopoeia / a reprint of the pamphlets of H.C. Wood, Alfred B. Taylor, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the National College of Pharmacy ; with a rejoinder addressed to the professions of medicine and pharmacy of the United States, by Edward R. Squibb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    14-1 It has, in rejoiiuler, been shown tliat the success of the past should be creilited to the workers, and not to the plan, and that if the workers could be called back to activity, and be kept well paid for their labor, both in money and reputation, it would not matter much under what plan they worked; and farther, that it was only as the workers failed through death and ina])ility, and as the progress of the interests involved became more rapitl and important, that the defects of the plan were discovered through its late want of success. It has also been shown that the principal defect of this old plan is radical, and inherent in the plan itself, and therefore not to be corrected or remedied without a radical change of plan. The defect here alluded to is that the professions of medicine and phar- macy, in whose interests the work is done, are too far removed from the work in time, (say ten or even five years) and that there is no direct responsibility for the work to the professions. That is, the ])rofessioiis make Conventions. These Conventions make Commit- tees, and then go out of existence for ten or five yeai-s, or for as long as they please, and are not even bound to provide for succeed- ing Conventions unless they so please, and therefore can stop the work when they please. Having appointed and empowereil Com- mittees of Revision, and having then ceased to exist, their Commit- tees have no direct responsibility to any authority, and become ab- solute and irresponsible, and, in fact, have done as they pleased, out of the reach of the professions whose work they arc charged with, because their enabling bodies, The Conventions, through which alone they are linked to the professions, have ceased to exist. These Committees have varied in nnmb<'r according to the then judgment of the different Conventions from seven to seventeen, appointed from all parts of a large country, ujion the theory of making the Committees widely representative in character, and upon the theory that such widespread Committees meet weekly in one city during a year or two to do the work, and that the work as done is submitted to their judgment. It is well known that these theories of the old plan have never been practiced, and equally well known that it is impossible to carry them out so far as meet- ings are concerned, with members living in San Francisco, Louis- ville, Chicago, Buffalo, Boston, etc. Hence it must certainly be admitted that defects which defeat the objects of a ])lan and render its details impossible, and which are inherent, c.innot be remedied without change of plan. And it is the sole aim and object of the l)rop()si (l new plan to remedy these defects and their results as seen in the work, in the most direct way.