Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/142

 reason to the contrary shall appear, the degree of Master of Pharmacy shall be conferred on such individuals respectively.

“3. That every person who shall have served a regular apprenticeship, of at least three years, with a respectable Apothecary, or a Master of Pharmacy, and who shall exercise or intend to exercise the profession of an Apothecary, in this State or elsewhere, may, on application to the Board, obtain the degree of Master of Pharmacy: Provided he shall produce a certificate of the Faculty of Medicine, signed by the Dean thereof, of his being qualified to receive the same, which certificate the Faculty may grant on the attestation of the Professors of Chemistry and Materia Medica and Pharmacy, who shall have examined the candidate. He must also produce a certificate of his good moral character.

“4. That in future it shall be requisite for obtaining such degree that the candidate shall have attended at least two courses of Lectures on Chemistry and Materia Medica and Pharmacy in this University.”

At the ensuing Commencement in April, 1821, sixteen gentlemen of Philadelphia engaged in the practice of pharmacy received the degree of Master of Pharmacy.

This procedure on the part of the University, in the matter of improving and elevating the practice of pharmacy, aroused the enterprising spirit of the druggists and apothecaries of Philadelphia, and incited them to found a “College of Pharmacy,” an independent institution, which, through the instrumentality of its school and of its journal, and by its vigilance with reference to the conduct of its members, has been of incalculable service to the profession of pharmacy, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but throughout the United States.

Another step taken by the Medical School in 1821 is not without interest. In November the Medical Faculty addressed a communication to the Board of Trustees relative to the gratuitous admission of students. The terms of the proposition and the action of the Board sanctioning them are thus presented on the Minutes of April 2d, 1822:—

“The Committee to whom was referred the letter of the Dean of the Medical Faculty, of the 5th of November last, on the subject of admitting six students to gratuitous admission,