Ohio History Journal

ROBERT A. BUERKI

Pharmaceutical Education in

Nineteenth-Century Ohio

The development of pharmacy as a profession in America had its roots in

English customs and traditions, the colonial practice of pharmacy differing

from that of its mother country only in being more lax and unrestricted and

standing on a somewhat lower level. Only a small minority of its practition-

ers was educated beyond an apprenticeship that lacked both the system and

standards that strong English guilds had once given it. Not until after the

Civil War was any school of pharmacy founded as a regularly recognized in-

stitution or as a part of a more comprehensive educational organization; in-

deed, formal academic study in pharmacy as a prerequisite to licensure would

not be required in any state until 1905.

Early attempts at pharmaceutical education in the United States met with

varying degrees of success. Until 1865, all formal instruction for the practice

of pharmacy centered in one southern medical collegel and, more importantly,

in five independent schools operated by pharmacists through their local asso-

ciations, called "colleges of pharmacy."² These organized groups of pharma-

cists and druggists were determined that their apprentices would be better edu-

cated than they themselves were. Less altruistic, but no less important exter-

nal stimulation came from physicians who saw pharmacy emerging as a sub-

sidiary branch of their own somewhat more developed profession, from a drug

market infested by substandard and adulterated drugs, and from publicity at-

tending the accidental poisonings attributed to ignorant drug vendors.³ In

Robert A. Buerki is Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Administration at The

Ohio State University.

1. In 1838, a pharmacy course was instituted by the Medical College of Louisiana, which

later became part of Tulane University. Graduating only one or two pharmacy students a year

before 1861, the venture was never influential on the development of university instruction in

pharmacy or on practice, but rather served as an example for other medical colleges that en-

tered pharmaceutical education in the 1860s. See Glenn Allen Sonnedecker, "American

Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of

Wisconsin, 1952), 59-60.

2. At this time in England, "college" referred to corporations with scientific aims as well as

to educational institutions. The term had a like meaning in France, where Parisian apothecaries

had established a College de Pharmacie in 1777 with educational as well as professional func-

tions.

3. Glenn Sonnedecker, "The College of Pharmacy During 75 Years at Ohio State

University," unpublished address before the Ohio Academy of Medical History, meeting in

Pharmaceutical Education                                                    43

Philadelphia (1821), New York (1829), and Baltimore (1841) and, later, in

Chicago (1859) and St. Louis (1865), the organizers of these schools sought

not only to supplement the practical information gathered by their apprentices

during their in-service training, but to organize the scattered fragments into a

systematic whole.⁴

In these early schools, physicians and, later, master pharmacists provided

instruction in the form of lectures two or three evenings a week during the

winter months. There were no requirements for admission, save possibly ap-

prenticeship with some preceptor; apprentices would attend the same lectures

twice in successive winters or possibly oftener; there was little laboratory in-

struction available.⁵ To graduate, the apprentices had to pass an examination

given by the lecturers and an examining committee of the college and show

proof of a satisfactory apprenticeship of four years, which included "attendance

upon lectures."⁶

Since the practice of pharmacy at the time was considered by most

American pharmacists and physicians as an art that could be best learned by

compounding the remedies in common use, the early schools enjoyed neither

custom nor prosperity, and in more than one instance the training of appren-

tices had to be delayed a number of years.⁷ The number of apprentices attend-

conjunction with the 75th annual meeting of the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio, April

30, 1960, 3, upon which much of this paper is based. Also see Sonnedecker, "American

Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 54, 58, and 63. Comparable conditions in American

medicine also produced untimely institutional deaths. See Allan Nevins, The Emergence of

Modern America, 1865-1878 (New York, 1927), 276-78.

4. Two other local associations were organized during this period, in Boston (1823) and

Cincinnati (1850), but neither were able to sustain a regular school of pharmacy until after the

Civil War.

5. Edward Kremers, "The Teaching of Pharmacy During the Past Fifty Years," The

Druggists Circular, 51 (January, 1907), 72. Apprentices were expected to receive their practi-

cal training in the drug store. In Chicago, for example, students "were encouraged to read,

study and experiment, utilizing the opportunities afforded in the shops.... The teachers pos-

sessed the equipment necessary for demonstration of the lectures, but there were no laborato-

ries." W[illiam] B. Day, "The School of Pharmacy," in The Alumni Record of the University of

Illinois, edited by Carl Stephens (Dixon and Chicago, 1921), xxvi.

6. Kremers, loc. cit. Kremers compared the schools of the colleges of pharmacy during this

period as Fortbildungsanstalten, "comparable to the evening schools of the several trades in

our larger cities of to-day."

7. Thus, the "school of undergraduates" of the College of Pharmacy of the City and County

of New York was "in a somnolent condition" between 1857 and 1859. Curt P. Wimmer, The

College of Pharmacy of the City of New York (New York, 1929), 20 and 50. The school of the

Maryland College of Pharmacy was more or less active until 1847, "but thereafter languished

until 1856, when . . . it was thoroughly reorganized." [Frederick Stearns], "Report on the

Progress of Pharmacy: Education," Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association,

7 (1858), 87. The Chicago College of Pharmacy suspended its courses of lectures upon the

outbreak of the Civil War and did not reopen its school until 1870. Albert E. Ebert, "Historical

Sketch of the Chicago College of Pharmacy," ([Chicago?], n.d.), 2, American Pharmaceutical

Association Archives, Washington, D.C., cited by Kremers, op. cit., 67. Even after 1865 at the

St. Louis College of Pharmacy there were a few years when "no lectures were delivered be-

cause there were not a sufficient number of students to form classes." W[illia]m C. Bohn,

44                                                             OHIO HISTORY

ing lectures in these colleges before the Civil War was small, and the number

who graduated was still smaller.⁸ In 1854, a commission organized by the

newly organized American Pharmaceutical Association complained that the

country had been

deluged with incompetent drug clerks, whose claim to the important position they

hold or apply for is based on a year or two's service in the shop, perhaps under cir-

cumstances illy calculated to increase their knowledge. These clerks in turn be-

come principals, and have the direction of others-alas! for the progeny that some

of them bring forth, as ignorance multiplied by ignorance will produce neither

knowledge nor skill.⁹

Even the Association did not expect apprentices to study at one of the phar-

macy schools. Rather, it admonished all levels of pharmacy personnel to read

the pharmaceutical literature "regularly and understandingly and assist [their]

reading by experiment and observation." The graduates of schools of phar-

macy were urged to "act as examples to their less favored brethren."¹⁰

The era of the pharmacy schools sponsored by local pharmaceutical associa-

tions ended with the Civil War; from that time on, pharmacy schools were

founded in one of four ways: privately by groups of pharmacists organized

only for that purpose; as parts of private or denominational universities and

colleges; as divisions of medical colleges; or, most importantly, as parts of

state universities. The private or "proprietary" schools, depending partly on

the approval of their pharmacist-trustees and financial supporters and more on

the fees paid by their students, were reluctant to offer much in the line of de-

manding training that might diminish the student body. On the other hand,

the pharmacy courses sponsored by medical colleges posed a territorial threat

to leaders within pharmacy.¹¹ With the establishment and growth of the state

"Our Alma Mater and We Her Children," Silver Anniversary Report of the Alumni Association

of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy (St. Louis, 1901), 27, cited by Kremers, op. cit., 68.

8. Among the 31,443,321 people in the United States in 1860 there were only 11,031 who

served as apothecaries or druggists; of these, not more than 514 had graduated from a phar-

macy course in the United States. Henry L. Taylor, "Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy," The

Pharmaceutical Era, 45 (May, 1912), 336; and Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical

Education Before 1900," 52, n. 17.

9. W[illiam] Procter, Jr., E[dward] Parrish, D[avid] Stewart, and J[ohn) Meakim, "Address

to the Pharmaceutists of the United States," Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical

Association, 3 (1854), 14.

10. Ibid., 391-92. The Association, however, recognized the "vast importance ... of good

schools of pharmacy, where the sciences pertaining to our art are regularly taught," and ex-

pressed its willingness to extend its "countenance and encouragement to those already existing,

and to all new efforts."

11. Pharmacy historian Glenn Sonnedecker notes that while these leaders were ready to

recognize a period of study at a medical college as equivalent to study at a college of phar-

macy, "they could not sanction any step that might surrender pharmaceutical education to

medical domination, and thus lead the profession back to the situation from which it had

scarcely escaped." Glenn Sonnedecker, Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy (4th ed.,

Pharmaceutical Education                                               45

universities, however, the education of pharmacists was placed on a different

plane, constituting, in the words of pharmacy educator and historian Edward

Kremers, "the principal factor in the onward development of pharmaceutical

education during this period."¹²

Pharmacy Training at State Universities

A fervent, almost mystical belief that education could free the common

man from domination and create a truly classless society gripped many

Americans during the early years of the Republic. This belief gave rise to,

and was fortified by, the lyceum movement, public libraries, Chautauqua,

popular science lectures, public grammar schools, and the tuition academies

that preceded the modem high schools. Social pressure and a felt need for re-

spectability nurtured the growth of schools in dentistry, in law, and in

medicine, the latter of which were particularly sensitive to the importance-

and power--of credentialing.¹³

The founding of general institutions of higher education likewise quickened

during this period, bolstered by denominational efforts, although endowments

were usually small. Moreover, by 1860, at least one state-controlled college

or university had been provided for by almost all of the southern states and

many states west of the Alleghenies, including Ohio's Miami University at

Oxford and Ohio University at Athens.1⁴ For the most part, however, both

public and private institutions continued to cling to the classical curriculum

that had served their upper-class clientele so well since colonial times.¹⁵

The passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862 jolted many leaders in

higher education. Three challenging concepts developed from this signal leg-

islation: the belief that higher education should be made available to broad

segments of the population, the feeling that education in the applied sciences

should be given wide recognition and significant status, and the conviction

that universities supported by public funds should serve both the immediate

and long-range needs of society by performing broad public services and by

rev.; Philadelphia, 1976), 231-32.

12. Kremers, op. cit., 76.

13. More than eighty medical schools had been established in the United States before the

Civil War. See William Frederick Norwood, Medical Education in the United States Before the

Civil War (Philadelphia, 1944), 431.

14. See Elwood P. Cubberley, Public Education in the United States: A Study and

Interpretation of American Educational History (Boston, 1934), 269; Charles F. Thwing, A

History of Higher Education in America (New York, 1906), 328; and Edwin Grant Dexter, A

History of Education in the United States (New York, 1904), 279; all cited by Sonnedecker,

"American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 67.

15. The notable exception in pharmacy, the College of Pharmacy at Baldwin University at

Berea, Ohio (1865-76), is discussed below in some detail.

46                                                         OHIO HISTORY

engaging in activities designed to serve the people.¹⁶ The Morrill Act thus

wove the strands of public interest in practical and applied science and public

faith in the power of the educational process into the fabric of American

higher education and provided the initial financial support to assure the suc-

cess of an entirely new type of institution, the land-grant college. To the

struggling health professions in mid-nineteenth-century America, the Act

brought the hope for stability and increased public recognition; to the increas-

ingly cramped and limited system of American pharmaceutical education, the

effect of the Morrill Act was no less than profound.

The first state-supported institution to produce graduates in pharmacy was

the Medical College of the State of South Carolina. The first two students

were graduated in 1867 and a few more during the 1870s, but by about 1885

the pharmacy department at Charleston had died out, not to be reorganized un-

til 1894.17 The University of South Carolina at Columbia likewise gave

some attention to pharmacy beginning about 1866 as part of a "School of

Chemistry, Pharmacy, Mineralogy, and Geology," but no students graduated

in pharmacy before the University collapsed in 1877 for lack of legislative

support. In 1884, a reorganized South Carolina College supported by a land

grant opened a School of Medicine and Pharmacy; from it and from a fully re-

constituted university College of Pharmacy (1888) emerged a thin trickle of

pharmacy graduates until the pharmacy course again collapsed in 1891.18

These struggling early southern efforts, reflecting the severe impact of the

Reconstruction period on the parent institutions, could not strike the spark for

the revolution to come in pharmaceutical education; this spark came from the

Midwest.

The revolution began in 1868 when the University of Michigan initiated a

pharmacy curriculum that rejected several assumptions common to the early

association-based schools of pharmacy. In a bold innovation, physician-

chemist Albert B. Prescott introduced extensive laboratory instruction coupled

with basic science, making the academic study of pharmacy practically a full-

time occupation. Like its southern predecessors, the Michigan school was

16. See Robert G. Mrtek, "Pharmaceutical Education in These United States-An

Interpretive Historical Essay of the Twentieth Century," American Journal of Pharmaceutical

Education, 40 (November, 1976), 363; and William A. Kinnison, Building Sullivant's Pyramid:

An Administrative History of the Ohio State University, 1870-1907 (Columbus, 1970), x-xi.

17. Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 106. Like its prede-

cessor at the Medical College of Louisiana, the South Carolina program offered no innovations

of instruction and graduated few students. See Sonnedecker, "The College of Pharmacy

During 75 Years at Ohio State University," 5.

18. Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 105-06. Instruction

resumed in September, 1924, with the establishment of a new School of Pharmacy. Details

concerning a "School of Pharmacy" as part of a "Medical College of Alabama, University of

Alabama" (1866) remain shrouded in mystery. Ibid., 82.

48                                                             OHIO HISTORY

program of instruction without either the cooperation of the practitioners in

the state, who were opposed to the idea, or the legitimizing influence of a

state pharmacy practice act.²¹

Prescott's two-year course of instruction consisted of four terms of three

months each and included ample laboratory work in pharmaceutical chemistry,

microscopic botany, and pharmacy, but required no apprenticeship as a prereq-

uisite to graduation. Prescott's rejection of the time-honored notion that aca-

demic instruction should be merely a rounding off of a prolonged apprentice-

ship, coupled with the profession's fear of encroaching "state control" of

pharmaceutical education, quickly made him an unpopular figure in pharma-

ceutical circles. Prescott explained the advantages of scientific pharmaceutical

education before the 1871 meeting of the American Pharmaceutical

Association with brevity and clarity,²² but suffered a stinging rebuke: his

school was refused recognition as a college of pharmacy within the "proper

meaning" of the constitution and bylaws of the Association.²³ Even the

Association's Secretary, John M. Maisch, could argue that it was "wrong to

give a pharmaceutical degree before the graduate has had pharmaceutical expe-

rience."²⁴ While a strictly constitutional rejection of Prescott's bold break

with tradition may readily be understood, the Association's opposition to the

advancement of pharmaceutical education through an agency of the state and

apprehension about the University's refusal to accept responsibility for ap-

prenticeship seems scarcely comprehensible unless we understand the almost

total commitment of its leaders to the educational ideology of the association-

based schools and their insistence on continuing to develop pharmaceutical

education independently from the medical profession. Moreover, in 1871 few

(New York, 1928), 106-07.

21. Sonnedecker, Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 234. The Michigan State

Pharmaceutical Association was founded in 1874; the Michigan State Pharmacy Practice Act

was adopted in 1885. Ibid., 379 and 381.

22. A[lbert] B. Prescott, "Pharmaceutical Education," Proceedings of the American

Pharmaceutical Association, 19 (1871), 425-29.

23. The Michigan school was judged "neither an organization controlled by pharmacists, nor

an institution of learning which, by its rules and requirements, insures to its graduates the

proper practical training, to place them on a par with the graduates of the several colleges of

pharmacy represented in this Association." George F. H. Markoe et al., "Report of the

Committee on the Credentials of the Delegate from the University of Michigan," Proceedings

of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 19 (1871), 47. Kremers points out that the dis-

cussion which followed "showed that the animus was directed against the institution and that

most of the persons taking part . . . cared little about the constitutional aspect of the situation."

Kremers, op. cit., 77.

24. "We grant that as much knowledge in physical and chemical science, and natural history

generally, as a young man may possibly acquire before he enters a drug store is extremely de-

sirable"; Maisch stated, "but we believe that with all his knowledge ... he will not be a phar-

macist until he has gone through a regular system of [practical] training." [John M. Maisch],

"Remarks on Pharmaceutical Education," Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical

Association, 19 (1871), 96.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                   49

states had a pharmacy practice act or a state board of pharmacy to which the

responsibility for apprenticeship could be shifted.²⁵

Twelve years passed before the second state university school of pharmacy

was founded at the University of Wisconsin (1883), yet it would be incorrect

to infer that the profession had been inactive during this time. Indeed, quite

the opposite was true: between 1871 and 1883, pharmacy practitioners in

thirty-one states had formed state pharmaceutical associations, including Ohio

(1879); these associations, in turn, had stimulated the passage of fifteen new

state pharmacy practice acts to regulate professional practice and control entry

into the profession.²⁶ In the arena of pharmaceutical education, activity was

no less intense, if ultimately less successful: of the eleven private and practi-

tioner-controlled proprietary schools founded during this period, only five, in-

cluding the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy (1871), survived by later affiliat-

ing with a private or public university.²⁷

In contrast to the school at Michigan, the Department of Pharmacy at the

University of Wisconsin was established by legislative act upon the request of

the pharmacists of the state assembled at the third annual meeting of their

new state association, one year after the enactment of a state pharmacy prac-

tice act. Unlike Prescott, the first Director of the new Department, pharma-

cist-scientist Frederick B. Power, made practical experience a requirement for a

diploma, although not a prerequisite for admission to the course.²⁸ Purdue

University opened its School of Pharmacy the following year (1884) "in re-

sponse to an earnest and growing demand for a through and practical training

in pharmacy and pharmaceutical chemistry.... by Indiana pharmacists," par-

ticularly master apothecary John N. Hurty of Indianapolis, who was influen-

25. See Sonnedecker, Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 232-33. In 1871, only

South Carolina, Georgia, New York, Alabama, and Rhode Island had adopted legislation

defining the practice of pharmacy and limiting that practice to qualified practitioners.

Moreover, only six other states-Maine, California, New Jersey, West Virginia, Vermont, and

Mississippi-had formed statewide associations of pharmacy practitioners by 1871. Ibid., 381

and 379.

26. Ibid. The causal relationship between the founding of state pharmaceutical associations

and the passage of state pharmacy practice acts is strikingly evident. Ibid., 215.

27. Besides the Cincinnati school, the practitioner-controlled schools founded during this pe-

riod were the Louisville College of Pharmacy (1871), the National College of Pharmacy

(1872), the Tennessee College of Pharmacy (1873), the California College of Pharmacy

(1873), and the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy (1878). The private institutions were

Georgetown College (1871), Columbian College (1871), Iowa Wesleyan University (1871),

Vanderbilt University (1879), and Union University (1881). Sonnedecker, "American

Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 117-18. For details concerning the later affiliations,

see Sonnedecker, Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 383-84.

28. Ibid., 234-35. Power came from the ranks of practical pharmacy and was a graduate of

the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. "He recognized the desire of community pharmacists

not to risk losing the identity of the concept of 'pharmacy' with that of 'drugstore,' by award-

ing a pharmaceutical degree to persons without practical experience," Sonnedecker stresses.

50                                                               OHIO HISTORY

tial in arousing the interest of Purdue's President John H. Smart.²⁹ Until at

least the turn of the century, one of these patterns would dominate the devel-

opment of state university schools and colleges of pharmacy: professional

pressure or-in the case of the state universities of Michigan and Ohio--the

persistence of an individual professor of chemistry. Moreover, the stability of

the state colleges and universities proved their merit: of the eighteen state-

sponsored schools and colleges of pharmacy founded between 1884 and 1900,

only three would fail;³⁰ in stark contrast, of the thirty-six private, proprietary,

association-based, or medical school-based schools and colleges of pharmacy

founded during this same period, only three survived intact, eight others hav-

ing merged or affiliated with public or private universities.³¹

29. Smart, in turn, convinced Hurty to serve as professor of pharmacy in the new School for

at least two years. Hurty came to Lafayette twice each week and gave practical instruction in

pharmacy and in the art of dispensing medicines and filling prescriptions, which culminated in

1889 with the development of the first course in dispensing pharmacy taught in the United

States. George Spitzer, "History of Purdue University School of Pharmacy," unpublished

manuscript, Lafayette, Indiana, [1929], 1-2, 5 and 7, Kremers Reference Files, F. B. Power

Pharmaceutical Library, University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy, Madison, Wisconsin

[hereinafter referred to as "Kremers Reference Files"]. Also see [Robert W. Babcock], A

Brief Account of the First Fifty Years of Pharmacy Education at Purdue, 1884-1934 (Lafayette,

1934), 6.

30. The state-supported schools and colleges are Purdue University (1884), the University of

Iowa (1885), the University of Kansas (1885), Ohio State University (1885), South Dakota

State University (1888), the University of Minnesota (1892), the University of Oklahoma

(1893), the University of Texas (1893), the University of Washington (1894), Auburn

University (1895), the University of Illinois, incorporating the Chicago College of Pharmacy

(1896), Washington State University (1896), the University of North Carolina (1897), Oregon

State University (1898), and the University of Tennessee (1898). The three unsuccessful state-

supported schools and colleges were the University of Colorado (1884?-85?), the University of

Virginia (1887?-98?), and the University of Maine (1895-1919). Compiled from Sonnedecker,

Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 384-85; and Sonnedecker, "American

Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 83, 93, 117, and 119.

31. The three surviving schools and colleges are Ohio Northern University, formerly Ohio

Normal University (1884); Ferris State College, formerly Ferris Institute (1893); and the

Medical College of Virginia (1897). The eight surviving merged or affiliated schools and col-

leges are the Iowa College of Pharmacy (1882), affiliated with Drake University in 1886; the

Kansas City College of Pharmacy (1885), affiliated with Lincoln and Lee University in 1927

and, later, with the University of Kansas City in 1943; the Buffalo College of Pharmacy (1886),

affiliated with the University of Buffalo-now the State University of New York at Buffalo-

in 1923; the Illinois College of Pharmacy of Northwestern University (1886), absorbed by the

University of Illinois in 1917; Scio College (1887), amalgamated with the Pittsburgh College of

Pharmacy in 1908; the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy (1891)-now the Arnold and Marie

Schwartz College of Pharmacy-affiliated with Long Island University in 1929; the New

Jersey College of Pharmacy (1892), amalgamated with Rutgers University in 1927; and the

University College of Medicine at Richmond (1893), amalgamated with Virginia School of

Pharmacy at the Medical College of Virginia in 1913. Compiled from Sonnedecker, Kremers

and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 384-85; and Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical

Education Before 1900," 87, 97-98, 108, and 110.

Pharmaceutical Education                                               51

Pharmaceutical Education in Ohio Before 1884

Before the Civil War, the practice of pharmacy in Ohio was by and large

unprofessionalized. There was no statewide organization of practitioners be-

yond the nucleus created by the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy in 1850, and

there was no state or local pharmacy practice acts. Most importantly, there

was no formal instruction available in pharmacy from either local associa-

tions or institutions of higher learning. As in most parts of the country at

the time, the Ohio youth who wanted to learn pharmacy would apprentice

himself to the operator of a drug shop for as long as he thought necessary be-

fore going out on his own. A more aspiring youth might make his way to

an urban center, such as Cincinnati or Cleveland, where a handful of primarily

foreign-trained master apothecaries could offer pharmacy apprenticeships at a

higher level. After the Civil War, however, the pace of professionalization in

Ohio pharmacy increased as a steady rate.

Baldwin University. The earliest instruction in pharmacy in the United

States under regular academic conditions³² emerged at Baldwin University in

Berea in 1865. The institution had originated in 1844 as Baldwin Institute,

the gift of Berea grindstone manufacturer John Baldwin to the Northern Ohio

Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1855, university powers

were granted.³³ The 1865 catalog of the University described the course of

study in the new College of Pharmacy as "regular recitation in Chemistry,

with lectures in the departments of Professional Ethics, Botany, Materia

Medica and Practical Pharmacy, . . . with experiments and practical illustra-

tions of the various pharmaceutical processes of the laboratory." In addition,

instruction would also be given in Practical and Analytical Chemistry and in

Photographic Chemistry, "embracing the history of the Photographic process

and the manufacture of all chemicals." The catalog spoke glowingly of

"numerous experiments in which the students will take part ... to make the

instruction as particularly useful as possible" and of "instruction in pharma-

ceutical operations and manipulations in the manufacture of chemicals and

other preparations, in extemporaneous pharmacy and in the dispensing of

32. The pharmacy curriculum established in 1838 within the Medical College of Louisiana at

New Orleans and, after 1847, as part of the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University)

claims historical priority in instruction, but not as a separately constituted school or college of

pharmacy. The Louisiana course did not flourish and probably was not well integrated with

either the Medical Department or the parent University during most of the nineteenth century.

See John P. Dyer, Tulane: The Biography of a University, 1834-1965 (New York, 1966), 21,

70n, and 134.

33. See W[illiam] O[xley] Thompson, "Baldwin University and German Wallace College,

Berea, Cuyahoga County, Founded 1845," in James J. Burns, Educational History of Ohio

(Columbus, 1905), 343-44; and "Baldwin University," in A History of Education in the State of

Ohio (Columbus, 1876), 234-35.

52                                                            OHIO HISTORY

medicine on prescription or otherwise."³⁴ Not the least interesting feature of

Baldwin's College of Pharmacy was its practice of conferring the degree of

"Bachelor of Medicine," although those students not continuing for the M.D.

degree ordinarily entered the practice of pharmacy.³⁵ The University graduated

only thirty-three students over the next ten years. There is no record of phar-

macy graduates or instructors after 1876, the University apparently having

closed its pioneering College because of insufficient enrollment.³⁶

Cincinnati College of Pharmacy. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati College of

Pharmacy had begun a regular systematic course in pharmacy in 1871, culmi-

nating two decades of plans and dreams. In 1851, for example, the members

of the College reported their intention of "opening their School this session";

in 1858, the leadership made bold plans for an "annual course of lectures for

Students in Pharmacy, in connection with the lectures of the Ohio Medical

College." Neither plan came to fruition.³⁷ Sometime during the early

1860s, however, and perhaps before, the College began to provide "personal

and indirect" monthly roundtable discussions and home instruction in phar-

macy and materia medica by Edward S. Wayne, in theoretical pharmacy by

William B. Chapman, and in theoretical chemistry by Adolph Fennel. The

course covered three years, partly at the small College room in Gordon's Hall

and partly at the homes of the "faculty"; diplomas or certificates were not

given.³⁸ This tentative beginning was destroyed by the Civil War. The

College was revived as a professional association in October, 1871, and regu-

lar instruction began that same December, initially following the earlier in

34. Quoted by F[rederick] Roehm, Dean of Baldwin-Wallace College in a letter to Edward

Kremers, December 24, 1931, Kremers Reference Files. Adjusting the claims to probable

reality, we may tentatively interpret them as meaning there were some demonstration experi-

ments. If there were regular laboratory instruction, it would antedate the earliest teaching lab-

oratories known at the University of Michigan (1868) and at the Philadelphia College of

Pharmacy (1870). See Sonnedecker, "The College of Pharmacy During 75 Years at Ohio

State University," 9.

35. Mrs. Jon. Baldwin, Jr., ed., Alumni Record of Baldwin University, 1846-1890 (Berea,

1890), 38-43, 46, 48-52, 55, and 57, Kremers Reference Files.

36. Ibid., 14; and Crisfield Johnson, comp., History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Philadelphia,

1879), 202.

37. [William Procter, Jr.], "Editorial: Schools of Pharmacy," American Journal of

Pharmacy, 23 (October, 1851), 391; and Frederick Stearns, "Report on the Progress of

Pharmacy: Education," Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 7 (1858),

88. "There is cause to fear that our Cincinnati brethren have become lukewarm and lifeless as

regards the advancement of the College of Pharmacy," Procter remarked the following year.

"The attempts hitherto made to get up a school of pharmacy have proved unsuccessful."

William Procter, Jr., "Report on the Progress of Pharmacy: Pharmaceutical Associations and

Education," Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 8 (1859), 104. Cited by

Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 65 and 99.

38. Cha[rle]s T. P. Fennel, "Cincinnati College of Pharmacy," in The Graduate [for] 1925,

edited by David Uhlfelder (Cincinnati, 1925), 19.

54                                                            OHIO HISTORY

1873. In 1877, the College obtained the first affiliation of its school with

the University of Cincinnati; in 1886, the school became a "department" of

the University in the sense that its students could draw upon its course offer-

ings without paying extra fees. This affiliation was a loose one, however;

the character and administrative control of the school remained fundamentally

the same until a formal affiliation agreement was approved in 1945.41

Cleveland School of Pharmacy. The demise of pharmacy instruction at

Baldwin University probably paved the way for the enthusiastic launching of

an independent Cleveland School of Pharmacy by the Cleveland

Pharmaceutical Association in 1882. Instruction began with a modest series

of twenty weekly lectures on pharmaceutical chemistry by Nathan

Rosenwasser, a chemist with Strong, Cobb & Company, but developed

rapidly. By 1885, the curriculum had expanded to a program of 110 graded

lectures extended over a period of two years, chemistry now being taught by

C. W. Kolbe, M.D., Ph.D., and pharmacy being taught by Henry W.

Stecher, Ph.C.⁴² Curiously, the School conferred no degree, Ohio law pro-

viding that no school might do so that did not possess property amounting to

at least $5,000. In fact, at the time, the School had no such ambition, being

content to prepare students for a final year at either the Cincinnati College of

Pharmacy or the Buffalo College of Pharmacy, both of which institutions

permitted the School's graduates to enter their senior classes without further

examination. "The Cleveland School is, and desires to be regarded as, only a

Preparatory School," its 1889 catalog declared, describing the School rather

whimsically as "a 'Jolly boat' in the wake of the 'Big steamers."'⁴³ In 1895,

however, the School added laboratory instruction, and two years later finally

conferred the degree of "Pharmaceutical Chemist" upon graduates of its new

formal though not more serviceable processes were instituted."

41. Freking, op. cit., 416 and 418; and "Pharmaceutical Colleges and Associations: The

Cincinnati College of Pharmacy," American Journal of Pharmacy, 58 (October, 1886), 526-27.

Cited by Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 100. Also see

"Cincinnati College of Pharmacy Affiliates With University," American Druggist, 112

(December, 1945), 142. Up to 1905, the College had graduated 696 students. "List of Alumni

of the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy," in The Graduate [for] 1925, 139-56.

42. Carl Winter, "The Cleveland School of Pharmacy: An Historical Sketch," Midland

Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review, 45 (January, 1911), 18-19. The Cleveland

Pharmaceutical Association had been organized only two years earlier, in 1880. E. A.

Schellentrager, Association president at the time, later recalled wondering "whether the young

men then engaged in our city pharmacies . . . would be able to successfully cope with the re-

quirements of the proposed [Ohio] pharmacy law." He urged the Association to establish the

School to aid those "who felt the need of systematic training but were loath to give up their sit-

uations in order to seek pharmaceutical education elsewhere." E. A. Schellentrager, "The

Cleveland School of Pharmacy," Merck's Market Report, 1 (July, 1892), 13.

43. Seventh Annual Announcement of the Cleveland School of Pharmacy, for the Session of

1888-89 (Cleveland, 1888), 17, Kremers Reference Files.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                   55

three-year graded course.⁴⁴ In 1908, the School became affiliated with

Western Reserve University and, in 1918, a formal School of Pharmacy of

the University until the School itself was discontinued in 1949.⁴⁵

In 1884, therefore, Ohio's drug clerks and apprentices could choose between

but two formal courses in pharmacy, both of which were under the control of

the local pharmaceutical associations in the state's largest metropolitan cen-

ters: the two-year graded curriculum offered by the Cincinnati College of

Pharmacy in loose affiliation with the University of Cincinnati and the initial

course of twenty lectures offered by the Cleveland College of Pharmacy.

While these courses seemed more representative of earlier educational efforts

by other local associations of practitioners in other states than the bold and

innovative pharmacy curricula then being offered by state universities in

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana, they do underscore the extreme importance

of the presence of a state pharmacy practice act in encouraging the develop-

ment of pharmaceutical education: in the two decades following the passage

of a state-wide pharmacy practice act in Ohio, no less than six college- and

university-based pharmacy curricula would be introduced within the state.

The 1884 Pharmacy Practice Act and an Educational Response

As noted above, outside of an unpopular 1852 act regulating the sale of

poisons in Ohio,⁴⁶ there was no legislation regulating the practice of phar-

44. Winter, op. cit., 19-20. Between 1884 and 1904, the Cleveland school graduated a total

of 281 students, including 76 from the "Junior Course," discontinued in 1890-91, 125 from the

"Senior Course," discontinued in 1895-96, 75 with the degree of "Pharmaceutical Chemistry,"

and one 1904 graduate with the degree of "Doctor of Pharmacy." 16th Annual Announcement,

Cleveland School of Pharmacy, Session of 1897-98 (Cleveland, 1897), 19-22; and 23rd Annual

Announcement, Cleveland School of Pharmacy, Session of 1904-1905 (Cleveland, 1904), 15-

16, Kremers Reference Files.

45. "Western Reserve University, The School of Pharmacy," [May, 1928], 3-4, Kremers

Reference Files. Between 1908 and 1918, the business management of the School remained

under the control of a board of trustees elected by the Cleveland Retail Druggists' Association.

Also see [Rufus A. Lyman], "Miscellaneous Items of Interest: President W. G. Leutner of

Western Reserve University .. .," American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 13 (April,

1949), 408. The University's administrative officers were unwilling to continue the School in

the face of the "critical financial problems" it faced, "for to do so must mean the lowering of

standards that would inevitably be to the discredit of both the university and the profession,"

Lyman reported sympathetically.

46. "An Act Regulating the Sale of Poisons," Acts of a General Nature Passed by the Fiftieth

General Assembly of the State of Ohio, L (Columbus, 1852), 167-68. Apothecaries, druggists,

and others were required to maintain a detailed register of poison sales to adults and could not

sell arsenic in pure form. The first report of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association's

Committee on Pharmacy Law recommended the amendment or abolishment of the law which it

considered "very illy adapted to the purposes for which it was designed, and . . . a real source

of annoyance and discomfort to both customers and to ourselves." Lewis C. Hopp, "Second

Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association," Proceedings of the Ohio State

Pharmaceutical Association, 2 (1880), 12.

56                                                             OHIO HISTORY

macy until 1873. On May 5 of that year, the Ohio General Assembly passed

an act "to regulate the practice of Pharmacy in certain cities of the first class"

having a population exceeding 175,000. The law plainly was meant to apply

only to Cincinnati, Ohio's largest city whose population at the time exceeded

216,000.⁴⁷ The law created a Pharmaceutical Examining Board which regis-

tered proprietors currently engaged in the "retail drug and apothecaries' busi-

ness" or those "who shall hold the diploma of an incorporated college of

pharmacy" without an examination for a one-time fee of five dollars and set

up a mechanism for examining others who would later enter the business;

non-owners could become registered as "qualified assistants" under similar

provisions.⁴⁸ Despite a rapid growth in Ohio's population over the next

decade, the law still applied only to Cincinnati.⁴⁹

On September 2, 1879, forty-five druggists met in Columbus to form a

new state association, hoping to extend the Cincinnati law's protection to

other parts of the state, and while the lofty goals of the new association in-

cluded provisions "to elevate the character of the Pharmaceutical Profession,

to unite the reputable Druggists of the state, to foster the education of those

learning the art, to stimulate the talent of those engaged in Pharmacy, and ul-

timately to restrict the sale of Medicines to persons qualified for the Practice

of Pharmacy,"⁵⁰ the latter goal clearly took precedence. Practitioners in the

47. "An Act to Regulate the Practice of Pharmacy in Certain Cities of the First Class, and for

Other Purposes," General and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Sixtieth General

Assembly, LXX (Columbus, 1873), 287-88. Cities of the first class had been defined by the

Ohio General Assembly in 1869 as having a population of at least 20,000. Without the

175,000-population proviso, the 1873 act would also have applied to Cleveland, Columbus,

Dayton, and Toledo. See "An Act to Provide for the Organization and Government of

Municipal Corporations," Chapter I, "Classification of Municipal Corporations," General and

Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Fifth-Eighth General Assembly, LXVI

(Columbus, 1869), 149-50; and "Table XXVI.-Population of Places of 4,000 Inhabitants and

Over, by Nativity: 1880 and 1870, Ohio," in U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office,

Compendium of the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880), rev. ed., Part I (Washington, D.C., 1885),

460-61.

48. "An Act to Regulate the Practice of Pharmacy in Certain Cities of the First Class, and for

Other Purposes," loc. cit. Qualified assistants were to have at least two years apprenticeship

experience and attended "one full course of lectures in chemistry, materia medica, and phar-

macy." Ibid., Section 6, 288.

49. By 1880, Cincinnati would grow to over 255,000, Cleveland to over 160,000, and

Columbus and Toledo to over 50,000 each. "Table XXVI.--Population of Places of 4,000

Inhabitants and Over, by Nativity: 1880 and 1870, Ohio," 460. In 1875, the Ohio General

Assembly would amend their 1873 act slightly, establishing a procedure for examining quali-

fied assistants and removing the restriction to the city of Cincinnati, but retained the 175,000

population requirement. "An Act to Amend an Act Entitled 'An Act to Regulate the Practice

of Pharmacy, in Certain Cities of the First Class, and for Other Purposes,' Passed May 5, 1873,"

General and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Sixty-First General Assembly of

the State of Ohio, LXXII (Columbus, 1875), 16.

50. "List of Members," Proceedings of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, 1 (1879),

10; and T[homas] J. Casper, "Minutes of the Meeting," ibid., 12. The meeting had been called

by Cleveland druggist Lewis C. Hopp, who would become the first Permanent Secretary of the

Pharmaceutical Education                                                  57

neighboring states of West Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania

had already organized their own state pharmaceutical associations, and the

Kentucky association had already agitated for and obtained a state pharmacy

practice act. In forming the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, Ohio's

druggists simply hoped "to check, if possible, the influx of incompetent

druggists from other States, who [regard] our fair State a 'Mecca' for their op-

erations."⁵¹

A Standing Committee on Pharmacy was appointed at the 1879 meeting

and brought forth a simple recommendation the following year "to have the

existing Pharmacy Act so amended as to apply to all cities and towns of five

thousand inhabitants and over." While the Association adopted the recom-

mendation, no concrete legislative proposal was brought forth until 1882.

That year, Committee Chairman John A. Nipgen of Chillicothe presented a

professionally drafted proposed law that received the close scruitiny and, fi-

nally, the enthusiastic endorsement of the Association. The proposal con-

tained an unusual provision which would prevent "officers or teachers in any

school or college of pharmacy" from serving on the Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

In the view of Association President Isaac N. Reed, schools and colleges

should not be allowed to propose laws that could curtail or hamstring the ef-

forts of state pharmaceutical associations. "A proper apprenticeship, supple-

mented by a thorough college of pharmacy course, is the true method for the

education of druggists," Reed stated, "and the time is fast approaching [in]

which all schools of polytechnics will be well patronized, without the aid of

cunning devices by their professors to secure special legislation in their fa-

vor."⁵² As a further slap at the Cincinnati college, absolutely no mention

was made of pharmaceutical education in the proposed bill; any person over

eighteen years of age who had been continuously engaged in compounding or

dispensing medicines on the prescriptions of physicians in any retail drug

Association.

51. Sonnedecker, Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy, 379 and 381; and

Schellentrager, op. cit., 13. In 1882, Association President Isaac N. Reed would declare that

"Ohio should no longer allow herself to be made the caldron into which all pharmaceutical in-

competencies may be dumped." I[saac] N. Reed, "President's Address," Proceedings of the

Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, 4 (1882), 14.

52. Hopp, op. cit., 12-13. The 1881 Committee on Pharmacy Laws was called upon, and not

having a report to present was discharged. A new Committee was charged with preparing "a

draft of a Pharmacy Law" and having it "printed and a copy sent to each member at the ex-

pense of the association." Lewis C. Hopp, "Third Annual Meeting of the Ohio State

Pharmaceutical Association," Proceedings of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, 3

(1881), 28 and 30. Also see J[ohn] A. Nipgen, "Report of Committee on Pharmacy Laws,"

Proceedings of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, 4 (1882), 41; and Reed, op. cit., 15-

16. "I do not wish to be understood as attempting to proclaim that colleges of pharmacy are

unnecessary institutions," Reed added. "On the contrary, they are vital to the interests and real

progress of pharmacy, and should have the co-operation and support of all State Associations."

58                                                            OHIO HISTORY

store in the United States was eligible for examination for licensure.⁵³ A

heavily amended version of the bill was defeated by the Ohio House of

Representatives, and upon reconsideration, referred to the Committee on

Medical Colleges and Societies where it languished.⁵⁴

In 1883, Association President D. C. Peters, a Zanesville physician, urged

his listeners not to be discouraged. There was "good reason to hope" that

with an increased membership in the Association "our state law-givers will be

prevailed upon to afford such measures of protection as justice to both phar-

macists and the people demand." He recommended that the now-experienced

Committee on Pharmacy Laws be continued and empowered to make what-

ever amendments would be necessary to secure passage of the bill during the

next session of the Ohio General Assembly "without changing the general

character and purpose of the bill." Finally, he cannily suggested that

Association members in every country in the state be mobilized as auxiliary

members of the Committee to lobby their local representatives.⁵⁵ Victory fi-

nally came on March 20, 1884; Governor George Hoadly promptly appointed

the first five-member Board of Pharmacy, which included Committee

Chairman Nipgen, who was subsequently elected its first president.⁵⁶ The

new law contained language assuring Ohio's physicians the right to dispense

medications, permitting any retail dealer to make or sell patent or proprietary

medicines, and allowing proprietors of country stores to sell an astonishingly

wide variety of chemicals, drugs, and drug-related items properly labeled by ei-

ther a pharmacist or a wholesale druggist. The restrictive language prohibit-

ing educators from serving on the Board of Pharmacy had disappeared, but no

mention of educational qualifications for the practice of pharmacy had been

53. Nipgen, op. cit., 45. At the time, the Pharmaceutical Examining Board of Cincinnati also

required graduates of the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy to take an examination before ad-

mitting them to practice, an unusual local extension of the 1873 law. Freking, op. cit., 418.

54. John A. Nipgen, "Report of the Committee on Pharmacy Laws," Proceedings of the Ohio

State Pharmaceutical Association, 5 (1883), 36. "Your committee made every effort to have

the bill again reported out of its regular order, but without success," Nipgen reported.

"Considering all the disadvantages they labored under, they see no cause for discouragement,

but urge the continuance of effort, believing that success will surely follow."

55. D. C. Peters, "President's Address," ibid., 12-13. Peters urged the Committee on

Pharmacy Laws to incorporate "a provision exempting the regular graduates of accredited

colleges of pharmacy from the contemplated examination by the State Board," but his recom-

mendation did not find favor among the membership. See R. G. Williams, John Ruppert, and

M. D. Fulton, "Report of the Committee on the President's Address," ibid., 40.

56. Philip H. Bruck, "Ohio Board of Pharmacy," Proceedings of the Ohio State

Pharmaceutical Association, 6 (1884), 31. Nipgen's Committee on Pharmacy Law had appar-

ently made peace with the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy, which, "under the leadership of

Professor [John Uri] Lloyd, changed its enmity into friendship, and its opposition into an earnest

and hearty support."  John A. Nipgen, "Committee on Pharmacy Laws," ibid., 29.

Significantly, the new Board also included Edward S. Wayne, M.D., Professor at the Cincinnati

College and member of the Cincinnati Pharmaceutical Examining Board. See Freking, op. cit.,

418-19.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                   59

included.⁵⁷ Nevertheless, it was enough. "We have great reason to congratu-

late ourselves on the success of the passage of our pharmacy bill," President

S. S. West enthused at the May, 1884, meeting of the Association in

Cincinnati. "The law as it passed may be considered to be as good, if not bet-

ter, than that of any of our sister States, although it may not exactly suit the

fastidiousness of some of the druggists of the State."⁵⁸ By the following

May, 3,953 pharmacists and assistant pharmacists had been registered by the

Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, 214 of whom had passed an examination;

ironically, the new law had already survived a "tincturing of dissatisfaction"

among "certain ones" who sought to amend or repeal the legislation.⁵⁹

Association President John Weyer provided some carefully worded support for

pharmaceutical education, but never let his listeners forget who was in charge

of deciding upon the educational qualifications of Ohio's pharmacists. "By

legislation we can enforce education and restrict the practice to persons prop-

erly qualified," Weyer stated. "By education we can most permanently and ef-

fectually elevate the standard and improve the science and art of Pharmacy. It

is, then, our plain duty to encourage education, or to enforce it if we must."⁶⁰

Ohio Northern University. The significance of the new pharmacy practice

act had not been lost on the teachers and administrators at the North-Western

Ohio Normal School at Ada. Shortly after the bill had been signed into law,

President Henry S. Lehr reasoned that if pharmacy apprentices and drug clerks

were to be examined for their competency as practitioners they would cer-

tainly seek schooling in certain topics. He hurriedly made it known that a

"Department of Pharmacy" would offer courses to those interested in prepar-

ing themselves for careers in pharmacy, perhaps as early as the fall of 1884.

President Lehr counted on drawing upon a preparatory medical course that had

57. "An Act to Amend Sections 4405, 4406, 4407, 4408, 4409, 4410, 4411, and 4412 of the

Revised Statues of Ohio," General and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Sixty-

Sixth General Assembly, LXXXI (Columbus, 1884), 61-65.

58. S. S. West, "President's Address," Proceedings of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical

Association, 6 (1884), 13. West later introduced G. P. Englehard, editor of the Chicago-based

trade paper The Druggist, who had been instrumental in securing the passage of the Illinois

pharmacy practice act in 1881. Englehard considered the new Ohio law "one which has no

superior, and one which might be copied by other States with profit." G. P. Englehard,

"Address," ibid., 41.

59. Philip H. Bruck, "Ohio Board of Pharmacy Report," Proceedings of the Ohio State

Pharmaceutical Association, 7 (1885), 26. The number also included 178 pharmacists and as-

sistant pharmacists who had been previously registered by the Cincinnati Pharmaceutical

Examining Board. Also see Geo[rge] L. Hechler et al., "Committee on Pharmacy Laws," ibid.,

23. The dissatisfaction "was caused by selfishness," Hechler reported, and while the opposi-

tion at first seemed "quite formidable," it finally "resolved itself into a minority of insignificant

proportions, which was overcome by watchfulness and perseverance on [the] part of your

committee."

60. John Weyer, "President's Address," ibid., 11. Weyer saw education as "a most sure

means of success."

60                                                             OHIO HISTORY

been organized two years earlier.⁶¹ By the fall of 1885, the "increasing de-

mands of students wishing to engage in the study of Pharmacy" led the fac-

ulty of the newly renamed Ohio Normal University to offer a "distinct course"

of study in theoretical pharmacy, theoretical and practical chemistry, botany,

materia medica, toxicology, and pharmaceutical preparations, the course itself

being extended over three terms of ten weeks each.⁶² The new Department

graduated its first class of six students in 1887. By that fall, the "wonderful

success" of the students had induced the three-man faculty to "enlarge and

greatly extend the course" to forty weeks, "making it second to none."⁶³ An

"original thesis on some subject relative to the subject of Pharmacy" was

added to the requirements for graduation in 1889, and by 1894, pharmacy stu-

dents attending the lectures, laboratories, and recitations at Ada could choose

between the one-year, forty-week course leading to the degree of

"Pharmaceutical Graduate" (Ph.G.) or an extended two-year course leading to

the degree of "Pharmaceutical Chemist" (Ph.C.). The second forty-week year

could be divided into two twenty-week terms, much of the work consisting of

elective courses.⁶⁴

61. Charles O. Lee, "Early Years of the Ohio Northern College of Pharmacy," The Ampul,

12 (Fall, 1961), 2; and "Medical," Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and Students of the North-

Western Ohio Normal School, and Business College, for the School Year 1882-83, and

Announcements for 1883-84 (Ada, 1883), 26, Rare Books-Archives Room, Heterick Memorial

Library, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio [hereinafter referred to as "Ohio Northern

Archives"]. Students pursuing the preparatory medical course were "furnished the very best

opportunities in the study of Botany [and] Chemistry as well as Anatomy and Physiology and

have the additional advantages of pursuing literary studies if they wish."

62. "School of Pharmacy," Sixteenth Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and Students of the

Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the School Year 1885-86, and

Announcements for 1886-87 (Columbus, 1886), 30-31, Ohio Northern Archives. Students en-

tering the new School were "expected to have a good general knowledge of the common

branches." The name change had taken effect the previous year, "owing to the request and

urging of many of our students." See "History," Fifteenth Annual Catalogue of the Teachers

and Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the School Year 1884-

85, and Announcements for 1885-86 (Columbus, 1885), 32, Ohio Northern Archives.

63. "Graduates of 1887: Pharmaceutical" and "Department of Pharmacy," Seventeenth

Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial

College, for the School Year 1886-87, and Announcements for 1887-88 (Cincinnati, 1887), 43

and 31, Ohio Northern Archives. The original faculty included M. J. Ewing, M.S., who taught

theoretical and practical chemistry, Charles S. Ashbrook, Ph.G., who taught theoretical and

practical pharmacy and materia medica and toxicology, and J. G. Park, A.M., who taught

botany and microscopy.

64. "Department of Pharmacy: Requirements for Graduation," Twentieth Annual Catalogue

of the Teachers and Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the

School Year 1889-90 and Announcements for 1890-91 (Columbus, 1890), 37, Ohio Northern

Archives. The Department eliminated "everything we do not consider absolutely necessary to

a complete and comprehensive knowledge of practical, every-day pharmacy," thus saving its

students "at least one year's time and expense." Ibid., 35. A provision exempting students who

passed the State Board of Pharmacy examination from their final examinations in the

Department was reversed the following year. See "Department of Pharmacy: Requirements

for Graduation in This Department," Twenty-first Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and

Pharmaceutical Education                                                       61

The University itself, which had started out as a proprietary venture in

1871, became affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1898.

Believing that "there can be no true education where the moral and religious

natures of the students are neglected," daily attendance at chapel was expected

and students were strongly encouraged to seek room and board with the citi-

zens of Ada, dormitory living being considered "not conducive to good man-

ners, health, or morality." The University assumed its present name, Ohio

Northern University, in 1904.65 Although the University itself became ex-

tremely conservative under its new administration, the Department of

Pharmacy continued to pursue a remarkably vigorous program, graduating

over 1,044 students during the first twenty years of its existence, adding an

optional "Pharmaceutical Doctor" (Pharm.D.) degree in 1906 for graduates of

its two-year program. The new program required an additional twenty weeks

of work "specializing on formulae and assaying of crude drugs," but there is

no record of the degree ever being conferred.⁶⁶

Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the School Year 1890-91,

and Announcements for 1891-92 (Akron, 1891), 42. Also see "Department of Pharmacy:

Special Course: Degree of Pharmaceutical Chemist," Twenty-fifth Annual Catalogue of the

Teachers and Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the School

Year 1894-95, and Announcements for 1895-96 (Ada, 1895), 49-50, Ohio Northern Archives.

The Catalogue stressed that the Department's diploma was "accepted in lieu of the first year's

lectures by the leading medical colleges." "Department of Pharmacy: Advantages," Twenty-

fourth Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and Students of the Ohio Normal University and

Commercial College, for the School Year 1893-94, and Announcements for 1894-95 (Akron,

1894), 47, Ohio Northern Archives.

65. W[illiam] O[xley] Thompson, "Ohio Northern University, Ada, Hardin County, Founded

1871," in Burns, op. cit., 353. Lehr "sought to make the school an open opportunity to all

classes at all times," Thompson noted. "The result was that many hundreds found the Ohio

Normal University an open door when other schools were closed to them." Also see "Home

Care and Comfort," Twenty-Ninth Annual Catalogue of the Trustees, Teachers and Students of

the Ohio Normal University .. . for the School Year, 1898-99 and Announcements for 1899-

1900 (Ada, 1899), 8; and "Moral and Religious Culture," Thirty-fourth Annual Catalogue of the

Teachers and Students of the Ohio Normal University and Commercial College, for the School

Year 1903-04 and Announcements for 1904-05 (Ada, 1905), 6, Ohio Northern Archives. The

extreme conservatism of the University was reflected in the attitudes of its students even be-

fore the institution became denominational. In 1890, a lay magazine reported the sight-unseen

purchase and subsequent unveiling of a nude statue of Apollo, which caused "wild screams

and a precipitate scattering of the students who fled in all directions, leaving the god master of

the situation." The students responded by sewing a pair of fine velvet knee breeches to clothe

the offending statue. Quoted by Mary Cable in American Manners and Morals (New York,

1969), 271.

66. "College of Pharmacy: Special Courses," Thirty-sixth Annual Catalogue, Ohio Northern

University: The Trustees, Teachers and Students for the School Year 1906-07, with the

Announcements for 1907-1908 (Ada, 1906), 5-6, Ohio Northern Archives. Candidates for the

degree were required to be twenty-one years of age, a high school graduate, and a graduate of

Ohio Northern's College of Pharmacy, as well as having completed "four years of practical

experience in a store where prescriptions are filled." Also see Lewis C. Benton and Charles

O. Lee, "The Early Years of the Ohio Northern University College of Pharmacy-II," The

Ampul, 14 (Spring, 1964), 14; and Charles O. Lee, "The Early Years of the Ohio Northern

University College of Pharmacy-III," The Ampul, 15 (Fall, 1964), 6.

62                                                          OHIO HISTORY

This rejection of an early attempt to proffer a professional doctorate in

pharmacy may be seen as a realistic assessment of the pharmaceutical tenor of

the times. The Ohio State Board of Pharmacy did not require one year of high

school as a prerequisite to a required, two-year graded course of instruction of

not less than twenty-six weeks per year until 1905; given this perspective and

the self-assured, even antischolastic, attitude of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical

Association, the decision by the Ohio State University in 1886 to launch a

demanding and pioneering three-year course leading to the Ph.G. degree must

have been seen by practitioners as daring, if not foolhardy.

Ohio State University. While the founding of formal instruction in phar-

macy at Ohio State University in 1885 was also related to the passage of the

Ohio pharmacy practice act, the impetus for pharmacy instruction at Ohio

State came from within the faculty of the University. One faculty member in

particular laid the groundwork for the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State:

Professor Sidney A. Norton, M.D., Ph.D.

Norton was serving as acting professor of physics at Union College in New

York when he was one of seven men called to constitute the first faculty of

the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1873. As Professor of

General and Applied Chemistry, Norton was a physician-chemist of unusually

wide interests who had studied chemistry in Bonn, Leipsic, and Heidelberg,

and would have been aware of the European tradition that closely linked

pharmacy and chemistry in practice and in the universities.⁶⁷ At Ohio State,

this linkage was explicit from the very first days of instruction.

For the first two years, all students were required to take a prescribed course

of study that included a full year of general chemistry, taught mainly by lec-

tures and recitations, and covering inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry,

and "applications of Chemistry to the Arts." A "special course" in chemistry

extended through two additional years, and covered qualitative and quantitative

analysis, the latter of which included "special studies in Chemistry applied to

Pharmacy, to Agriculture, to Manufactures, and to the Arts."⁶⁸

Norton himself was a stern but dedicated teacher who demanded the best

67. Alexis Cope, History of the Ohio State University, Vol. I, 1870-1910, edited by Thomas

C. Mendenhall (Columbus, 1920), 66-67. Norton received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from

Union College in 1856 and 1859, his M.D. from Miami Medical College in 1869, his Ph.D. from

Kenyon College in 1878, and his LL.D. from Wooster University in 1881. Norton had served

as an instructor in natural science in the Cleveland High Schools (1857-66), teacher of natural

science at Mt. Auburn College (1866-72), and professor of chemistry at Miami Medical

College (1867-72) before returning to Union College in 1872 as acting professor of physics.

68. Third Annual Report of the Trustees of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, to

the Governor of the State (Columbus, 1877), 48; and "Degrees and Courses of Study," Circular

and Catalogue of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, For 1873-74 (Columbus,

1874), 9 and 13. The course in qualitative analysis included reactions of single bases and

acids, blowpipe and flame reactions, determination of mixtures, and blowpipe mineralogy.

Ibid., 12.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                  63

from his students and usually got it. He often loaned his personal books and

papers to students to study and even designed a ventilation system for

University Hall, which was ill-adapted for laboratory instruction in chem-

istry.⁶⁹ In 1876, Norton gave a detailed account of his teaching methods in

general chemistry:

The various themes, as they arise, are first studied in the text-book and such other

works as the student has at his command. He is then required to make out for the

most important topics written exercises in which a carefully methodized order is

followed. Topics, too briefly considered in the text-book or difficult of compre-

hension, are taken up and elucidated by lectures. Most of these lectures are accom-

panied by a written syllabus, which the student has at his disposal for reference

and which he is allowed to copy.... The lectures and the text-book are illustrated

by a very complete suite of experiments. . . . [and are] continually reinforced by

recitation and examination.

Norton took pains to point out how special studies in quantitative analysis

were modified to meet the needs of individual students. "Care has been taken

to adapt the laboratory work, as far as possible to the use which the student

expects to make of chemistry in after life," Norton stressed, noting that "one

of the pupils in the laboratory, who intended to become a druggist, was aided

in making various researches in pharmacy."⁷⁰

By 1879, the number of students enrolled in the advanced courses had in-

creased from seven to twenty-nine, and Norton was convinced he was on the

right track. He pressed for additional work in synthetic chemistry and to be

allowed a special sum of money for the purchase of the requisite material.

"If, in this material, a portion were of the substances used in pharmacy, our

students could, with little trouble to themselves, make a fair beginning in

what is called Pharmaceutical Chemistry," Norton suggested. "Several of our

69. See Sidney A. Norton, "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Fifth Annual Report of the

Board of Trustees of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, to the Governor of the State

of Ohio. For the Year 1875 (Columbus, 1876), 52-53; and "Department Reports: Chemistry," in

Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College,

to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the Year 1876 (Columbus, 1877), 73-74. "Two and

one-half hours' work, daily, for two years, is not sufficient time for attaining anything like a

mastery of analytical chemistry," Norton complained in 1880. "I would suggest that notice be

made, on graduation, of the degree of excellence attained by the student. I am certainly mor-

tified at being compelled to accept the minimum of attainment for passing in chemistry."

Sidney A. Norton, in "Department Reports: Chemistry," Tenth Annual Report of the Board of

Trustees of the Ohio State University, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the Year 1880

(Columbus, 1881), 23. In 1920, colleague Thomas C. Mendenhall recalled that Norton "taught

chemistry as an exact science and the paths of least resistance did not lead through his course."

Quoted by James E. Pollard, History of the Ohio State University: The Story of its First

Seventy-Five Years, 1873-1948 (Columbus, 1952), 26.

70. Sidney A. Norton, "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Sixth Annual Report of the

Board of Trustees . . . For the Year 1876, 70-71. Norton added that the student's research

"would have been largely extended had his plans allowed his longer continuance with us."

Pharmaceutical Education                                                     65

"The various laboratories of the University offered unusual facilities for the

collateral studies required," he continued, "and I am moreover convinced that

there is a growing demand for young men who have made such special prepa-

rations."⁷²

In 1883, restless after four years of delay, Norton took the first concrete

step toward establishing a pharmacy curriculum by encouraging his assistant,

David O'Brine, to conduct a "voluntary class in Materia Medica." Three of

O'Brine's students, all who applied, passed the first examination conducted by

the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy on May 12, 1884.⁷³ "This experiment in-

dicates," Norton reported in November, "that a field is open in this direction

to the University," adding that, "if suitable facilities were offered, it would be

easy to obtain the service of a competent pharmacist at a nominal salary,

who, by supplementing the work of our present force of instructors, could

easily arrange a course of study which would satisfy the requirements of the

State Board of Pharmacy." In his zeal, Norton stretched the truth slightly by

concluding that the University should undertake this work "because the State

requires that young men intending to become druggists, should pursue a

course of study in Science, but has made no provision for it."⁷⁴ Nor did he

say that evidence was fast accumulating in other states suggesting that state

boards of pharmacy were not likely to disqualify a self-made and self-taught

candidate if he or she evidenced tolerable minimal knowledge and safety for

professional practice.

Nevertheless, President William A. Scott was convinced. In his 1884 re-

port to the Board of Trustees, Scott called for new departments, new men, and

new buildings. "Departments of industrial art, architecture, pharmacy, politi-

72. Sidney A. Norton, "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Eleventh Annual Report of the

Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the

Year 1881 (Columbus, 1882), 23; and "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Twelfth Annual

Report of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University to the Governor [of the State of

Ohio, For the Year 1882 (Columbus, 1883), 31. In 1881, Norton remarked that it was out of

place for him to "estimate the so-called educational value of such special, and thereby one-

sided courses," but concluded that such specialties were needed. "We should do our part to

equip them as well as may be profitable."

73. Sidney A. Norton, "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Fourteenth Annual Report of

the Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the

Year 1884 (Columbus, 1884), 32. The successful candidates appear to be Azor Thurston of

Grand Rapids, Ohio, who was registered as a pharmacist, and Cyrus B. Martin and William C.

Mills of Columbus, who were registered as assistant pharmacists. Only 27 of the 36 candidates

were able to pass the examination. See Bruck, "Ohio Board of Pharmacy," 32, cf. "Record of

Studies-Collegiate Department," Vol. I:  1881-1884, 190, 91, and 104, in Ohio State

University Archives, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

74. Norton, "Department Reports: Chemistry," in Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of

Trustees ... For the Year 1884, loc. cit. Norton may have been thinking of the 1873 Ohio law

which exempted graduates from the incorporated colleges of pharmacy from taking an exami-

nation from the Cincinnati-based Pharmaceutical Examining Board. The 1884 law made no

mention of formal academic preparation for the practice of pharmacy.

66                                                              OHIO HISTORY

cal and social science, rhetoric and oratory, and the science of teaching, ought

to be created as soon as the means at your command will admit."⁷⁵ Norton

himself appeared before the Board on November 12 "in reference to establish-

ing a course of pharmacy at the chemical department." The matter lay dor-

mant for seven months; on June 24, 1885, however, a series of events began

to unfold rapidly. The Board formed a committee consisting of Scott and

Board Chairman Henry J. Booth, who were directed to consult with Norton in

reference to establishing a school of pharmacy, and appropriated the sum of

$200 for that purpose. On September 3, the committee reported that they had

decided that such a school should be established, and that they had employed a

local wholesale druggist, George B. Kauffman, as "lecturer in pharmacy."⁷⁶

A scant two weeks later, on September 17, the school opened with ten stu-

dents in attendance, representing about three percent of the 319 students then

on campus.⁷⁷

Scott seemed pleased by the modest beginnings. In November, he reported

to the Board that "the way now seems open to offer much more than was first

contemplated," and held out the prospect of "a full course of study to be com-

pleted with a degree" before the opening of the 1886-87 academic year.

"When this decisive step has been taken, and made known to the public, a

good number of men may be expected to apply for admission." Norton

agreed, describing the program as "a sort of entering wedge for a full and

75. William H. Scott, "Annual Report of the President for 1883-4," in ibid., 26. "I make this

extended enumeration of wants in order to emphasize the greatness of the work that is before

us," Scott continued. "It is necessary that we should devise large plans and put forth united and

earnest efforts."

76. T[homas] J. Godfrey, "Record of Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of Ohio State

University," in Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, to

the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the Year 1885 (Columbus, 1886), 94, 110, and 112. In

his summary report to Governor George Hoadly, Board Secretary Alexis Cope pointed out that

almost all the branches necessary to be taught in such a school were already taught at the

University, and that the "only thing needed to make such a course of study thorough and com-

plete" was the aid of a "practical pharmacist to give a course of lectures on the subject." The

$200 appropriation was used to "procure the necessary drugs, etc., for manipulation and

study." Kauffman's services were procured for $400. See Alexis Cope, "Report of Trustees,"

in ibid., 12; and H[enry] J. Booth, in Record of Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio

Agricultural and Mechanical College and the Ohio State University, Columbus, May 11, 1870,

to June 25, 1890 (Columbus, n.d.), 314.

77. The ten students were Herman George Beck, Albert Gallatin Byers, Beatrice Earhart,

and Charles Henry Krieger of Columbus, Arthur Theodore Heath and George Frederick

Weidner of Cuyahoga Falls, Edwin Percy Bonner of London, Jonah Clifford Cadwallader of

Morrow, Charles Campbell Cherryholmes of Millersburg, and Henry Titus West of Sylvania.

See "University Calendar," Catalogue of the Ohio State University For the Year 1883-4

(Columbus, 1884), 7; "Students in Pharmacy," Catalogue of the Ohio State University for the

Year 1885, in Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Trustees . . . For the Year 1885, 128; and

William H. Scott, "The Annual Report of the President," in Sixteenth Annual Report of the

Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the

Year 1886 (Columbus, 1887), 22.

68                                                            OHIO HISTORY

the extensive facilities of his private laboratory. The other studies of the class in

pharmacy will, it is hoped, find their proper places in connection with the regular

classes of the university.

At present no degree is offered, since it is thought that sufficient inducement for

hard study is presented by the certificate given by the Ohio board of pharmacy for

evidence of qualification shown by a satisfactory examination. The degree of

bachelor of pharmacy will probably be given upon completion of the full

course.⁷⁹

While considered provisional, the new course in pharmacy was solidly

packed with basic science courses and was intended to fill two thirty-seven-

week years, putting it on a par with offerings at the University of Michigan,

which served as a benchmark of academic rigor for other American schools

and colleges of pharmacy, both public and private.⁸⁰ During their first year,

students were expected to take twenty-five hours of chemistry and chemistry

laboratory work, six hours each of physiology and pharmacy, five hours each

of botany and physics, and three hours of blow-piping. During their second

year, students were to take an additional fifteen hours of chemical laboratory,

fifteen hours of botany, fifteen hours of pharmacy, ten hours of materia med-

ica, and five hours of principles of medicine. An optional thesis could be

substituted for five hours of materia medica.⁸¹ The rigor and high academic

standards would take their toll, however: only three of the original ten stu-

dents completed the provisional two-year pharmacy course at Ohio State.⁸²

The following year, Ohio State University became the first institution in the

nation to require three full years of graded study as a condition to awarding the

"Graduate of Pharmacy" degree.⁸³

79. "The School of Pharmacy," Catalogue of the Ohio State University for the Year 1885, in

ibid., 152.

80. "Terms and Vacations," Catalogue of the Ohio State University for the Year 1885, in

ibid., 62. In 1885, the University of Michigan required its pharmacy students to spend "seven

or eight hours a day in college, with some hours daily in private study," constituting "a pro-

gressive course for two collegiate years of nine months." In contrast, the University of

Wisconsin required two years of 27 weeks each, Purdue University required two years of 20

weeks each, and the State University of Iowa required only 22 weeks of ungraded subjects

spread over two terms, plus laboratory work. The New York College of Pharmacy, one of the

stronger independent schools, required its students to attend four or five lectures a week during

a five-and-one-half-month term, and 15 laboratory sessions during each of two terms. See

"Announcement for 1885-6," Annual Announcement of the School of Pharmacy of the

University of Michigan for the Eighteenth Year, 1885-6 (Ann Arbor, 1885), 5, Kremers

Reference Files; and Sonnedecker, "American Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 392.

81. "Provisional Course in Pharmacy," Catalogue of the Ohio State University for the Year

1885, in Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Trustees... For the Year 1885, 138.

82. Alexis Cope, "Report of Trustees," in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of

Trustees of the Ohio State University, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, For the Year 1887

(Columbus, 1888), 17. The three graduates were Arthur Theodore Heath and George Frederic

Weidner of Cuyahoga Falls, and Charles Henry Krieger of Columbus, who received their

Ph.G. degrees on June 22, 1887.

83. The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy reported a four-year, twenty-week term "full

Pharmaceutical Education                                                      69

Pharmaceutical Education in Ohio After 1885

Ohio State's entry into the arena of pharmaceutical instruction by no means

inhibited the development of other schools of pharmacy within the state dur-

ing the next two decades; indeed, such growth may be seen as part of a na-

tional trend of proliferation in pharmaceutical education which in Ohio re-

sulted in the establishment of four new schools and colleges of pharmacy and

a Columbus-based correspondence school.⁸⁴

National Normal University. Like the Department of Pharmacy in Ada, the

National Normal University School of Pharmacy at Lebanon had its roots in

the independent normal school movement of the mid-1850s; indeed, the

movement found its most congenial home in Lebanon and its most impas-

sioned advocate in Alfred Holbrook, son of Josiah Holbrook, founder of the

American Lyceum movement.⁸⁵ Holbrook had been called to head the new

Southwestern State Normal School in Lebanon in 1855; the following year,

the School passed into the control of Holbrook, who operated it on a propri-

etary basis.⁸⁶

The new school attracted controversy from the very first: pupils were ad-

mitted without examination and were placed where they could do the best

course" to the U.S. Commissioner of Education in 1884, but it may be assumed that the College

was merely emphasizing its assumption that apprenticeship was an integral part of its four

years of pharmaceutical education. Likewise, the Louisville School of Pharmacy for Women

made the remarkable claim of a three-year course, with thirty-six weeks in each school year,

but Sonnedecker notes that "this and other grandiose claims by the school have an air of doubt-

ful probability." See "Table XIII.-Statistics of schools of medicine, of dentistry, and of

pharmacy for 1884-'85, &c.," in Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1884-

'85 (Washington, D.C., 1886), 666; and Glenn Sonnedecker and Charles L. Williams, "Ohio

State University's Contribution to Pharmaceutical Education," unpublished paper presented to

the Section on Education and Legislation, American Pharmaceutical Association, Chicago,

April 25, 1961, 8.

84. In 1952, Sonnedecker reported a fifth institution, the "Ohio School of Pharmacy,

Columbia, Ohio," which offered a nine-month course under the direction of "Jas. H. Canfield,

President." In 1961, he speculated that the School "must have been transitory, if indeed it ever

became a useful venture." Further research reveals that the "School" was merely a garbled

reference to the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. See Sonnedecker, "American

Pharmaceutical Education Before 1900," 103; Sonnedecker and Williams, op. cit., 4-5;

"Where Students of the United States Can Obtain Pharmaceutical Instruction," Meyer Brothers

Druggist, 17 (April, 1896), 192; cf. "Where Students of the United States Can Obtain

Pharmaceutical Instruction," Meyer Brothers Druggist, 17 (May, 1896), 226.

85. Holbrook often drew his readers' attention to the mathematical connotation of the term

"normal" as the shortest distance from a point to a line or plane, reflecting his passion for pur-

suing his education objectives by the most direct methods.

86. W[illiam] O[xley] Thompson, "The National Normal University, Lebanon, Warren

County, Founded 1855," in Burns, op. cit., 339; and Karl J. Kay, History of the National Normal

University of Lebanon, Ohio (Washington Court House, 1929), 5-7. Henry S. Lehr, president

and founder of the normal school at Ada, had been a pupil of Holbrook's and conducted his

new school "very largely upon the same general plans." Ibid., 25.

70                                                            OHIO HISTORY

work; there were no final examinations; there were no vacations, save two or

three weeks each summer. By 1865, an entire four-year college course was ar-

ranged to occupy two fifty-week years of twelve- to fifteen-hour days filled

with written exercises, recitations, drills, and independent study, entirely re-

placing the tried-and-true lecture system then in common use. Yet a full

year's expenses, including tuition, room and board, would not exceed $150.⁸⁷

The foreshortened, economical program was an immediate success: by 1870,

students were enrolled from so wide a territory that they petitioned to have the

School renamed the "National Normal School"; by 1875, enrollment reached

1,567, more than twice the figure reported a decade earlier. In 1881, full uni-

versity powers were granted by the state, and the School was renamed the

"National Normal University."⁸⁸

The School of Pharmacy was established in 1886 as part of a general ex-

pansion of the University, as at Ohio Northern and Ohio State, evidently in

direct response to the Ohio pharmacy practice act of 1884.89 The unspecific

coursework of the new School was in the hands of Francis H. Frost, M.D.,

who taught chemistry and served as Dean, and J. T. Moore, M.A., who

taught botany; the course itself was distributed over a three-year period to co-

incide with the three-year practical experience requirement of the State Board

of Pharmacy. What made the new School unique, however, was its emphasis

on "literary education" and an unusual work-study arrangement. The School

offered "a position in a drug store for three years" and the privilege of com-

pleting the two-year "Scientific Course" leading to the B.S. degree on a con-

comitant basis; the School itself conferred the degree of "Pharmacist and

Druggist."⁹⁰ Both the School and the University flourished for a decade.

87. M. F. Andrew, "Alfred Holbrook," in Burns, op. cit., 504. Classes were held Tuesday

through Saturday. This arrangement "protected Sunday from the study and preparation of

lessons [and] also offered the ladies a better opportunity for individual laundry work."

88. Kay, op. cit., 15, 17, and 29. At the time, college-bound students spent three or four

years in a preparatory school in an academy before embarking upon their college careers,

which consumed an additional three or four years. Holbrook's University condensed the

preparatory work to forty-eight weeks as an end in itself or as a prerequisite to the Scientific

Course, which required another forty-eight weeks and culminated in the Bachelor of Science

degree. Interestingly, the B.S. degree was a prerequisite for the Classic Course, which re-

quired another forty-eight weeks of intense study and rewarded successful candidates with the

Bachelor of Arts degree, since Holbrook "regarded a knowledge of mathematics and the sci-

ences as a prerequisite to a knowledge of the classics." Graduates of the Classic Course could

enter the senior year at Yale University without examination and other institutions, such as the

University of Kentucky, the University of Michigan, and Ohio State University on "favorable

terms." Ibid., 26-27 and 35-36.

89. Ibid., 17. The other new departments added were law, medicine, photography, and

shorthand typing. The faculty, or "Board of Instruction," had increased from seven members

in 1859 to thirty-five, and Holbrook had assumed the title of "President of the University."

90. "School of Pharmacy," Thirty-Second Annual Catalogue of the Teachers and Students of

the National Normal University (Lebanon, 1888), 82, College Archives, S. Arthur Watson

Library, Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio [hereinafter referred to as "Wilmington

College Archives"]. Pupils were given credit for prior experience in a drug store, which was

Pharmaceutical Education                                                   71

In 1893, Holbrook's naive management practices forced him to form a capi-

tal stock company in order to allow the overextended University to pay its

debts.⁹1 Under its new organizational structure, the University's prospects

appeared to brighten, and the renamed College of Pharmacy continued to

prosper under the direction of Frost, who succeeded Heber Holbrook as dean in

1896. Frost's new curriculum extended over two years of twenty-five weeks

of study, covering a more orthodox program of systematic and physiological

botany, inorganic and organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, toxicology and

urinalysis, microscopy and histology, bacteriology, materia medica, physiol-

ogy, and practical pharmacy, including laboratory work. Students completing

the course in a "satisfactory manner" received the Ph.G. degree. Tuition for

the entire course was held to $75.92

Yet by 1904, competitive pressure forced Frost to condense his curriculum

to a non-degree program consisting of three terms of sixteen weeks over the

course of one year. This short course was "designed to help those who want

to prepare for the state board in the least possible time," and was aimed at

those "who have had some experience in the practice of Pharmacy," such as

microscopy and volumetric analysis, and included "a review of the

Pharmacopeia to aid students in passing the state board." The Ph.G. degree

was awarded to graduates of a new two-year program. Tuition was reduced to

$60 per year.⁹³

Despite high academic standards, loyal alumni, and a gradually increasing

enrollment, the debt-ridden University entered into a period of rapid decline.

When a last-ditch attempt by alumni to endow their alma mater failed in

1917, the University closed its doors forever, following a hastily arranged

merger with nearby Wilmington College, a conservative Quaker institution.⁹⁴

The College of Pharmacy continued to thrive during the period of decline,

however, under a new organizational structure and at a different location. The

applied against the three-year requirement. Students were also encouraged to apply for a $100

scholarship, which covered tuition in both courses for three years.

91. Thompson, loc. cit.; and Kay, op. cit., 19 and 21. The University went into receivership

in 1895. Kay notes that Holbrook not only lacked "financial shrewdness," but adopted an ex-

travagant life style "suitable for the active head of a large educational institution." Following

the receivership, the Holbrook family scattered, but Holbrook clung stubbornly to his presi-

dency, which he relinquished in 1897.

92. "College of Pharmacy," The National Normal University Catalogue, 1897-98 (Lebanon,

1897), 54, Wilmington College Archives.

93. "College of Pharmacy," National Normal University Bulletin, First Series, 1 (August,

1904), 34 and 37, Wilmington College Archives. Advantages cited for the program included

the opportunity to study a business course or any other subject concurrently and the assurance

that the two-year course would be accepted for one year's work in medical colleges. Frost

was assisted by William Merton Jackson, Ph.B., Ph.C., as "Instructor of Pharmacy." See

"Faculty," in ibid., 4.

94. See Kay, op. cit., 28-31. Wilmington College preserved the former University's records,

evaluated its students' credits for transfer to other institutions, and hired three of its remaining

faculty.

72                                                             OHIO HISTORY

"Queen City College of Pharmacy" of Cincinnati had become a part of the

University in 1914. The scanty records remaining show an enrollment of 147

students in 1915, and a graduating class of 54 in 1917.⁹⁵ Described as "one

of the most thorough and successful schools of Pharmacy in the country," the

Queen City College conferred the 'usual degrees" under the direction of Frank

B. Cane, M.D., Ph.M. Cane was succeeded as dean by pharmaceutical jour-

nalist Caswell A. Mayo, who orchestrated an amalgamation of the College

with the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy in 1920.96

Scio College of Pharmacy. The thread of continuity that runs through

Ohio's schools and colleges of pharmacy is nowhere more apparent than in

the case of the Scio College of Pharmacy. Like its predecessor at Lebanon,

its parent institution was given to radical educational reforms; like its sister

colleges at Berea and Ada, it was affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal

Church.

This small liberal arts school began as the Rural Seminary at Harlem

Springs in 1857. In 1867, it removed to New Market and incorporated as the

New Market College, under the limited patronage of the Church. In 1872,

the College radically changed its methods and reorganized as "The One Study

University." The novel "one study" plan of instruction attracted wide atten-

tion, but did not thrive: in 1877, the plan was abandoned, and the College

once more was reorganized as Scio College, under the full control of the

Church.⁹⁷

Instruction in pharmacy began in 1888, under the tutelage of pharmacist-

lawyer James Hartley Beal; a formal Department of Pharmacy was organized

the following year. By 1890, two separate courses of instruction were pro-

vided: a one-year, ten-and-one-half-month course leading to the Ph.G. degree

"for the convenience of those who desire to qualify themselves for clerkships,

95. "Cincinnati Colleges Amalgamated," The Pharmaceutical Era, 53 (November, 1920),

343. The College had been founded by Cane in 1912. Also see "List of Students," Bulletin of

Lebanon University, 7 (August, 1915), 32; and "Graduating Class of the Pharmacy

Department," Bulletin of Lebanon University, 8 (August, 1916), 45-47, Wilmington College

Archives. In addition to Ohio, the College served students from Kentucky, Michigan, North

Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

96. "The College of Pharmacy," in ibid., 42. The Bulletin description noted that the Queen

City College was "equipped with every modern convenience" and called prospective students'

attention to Cincinnati's famous Lloyd Library, which offered "facilities for research that can-

not be surpassed," adding grandly "the American Pharmaceutical Association holds its meet-

ings in this Library, and all the students of the College are given the opportunity of attendance

and participation." Also see "Cincinnati Colleges Amalgamated," loc. cit.

97. W[illiam] O[xley] Thompson, "Scio College, Scio, Harrison County, Founded 1857," in

Bums, op. cit., 351. The "one study" plan "had some advantages not as readily recognized in

the days before electives," Thompson points out. The college spirit, as well as college tradi-

tions "could not thrive," however, and the plan "did not satisfy." Also see Letter, George D.

Beal to Edward C. Elliott, September 25, 1947, 1, Kremers Reference Files. Beal notes that the

"one study" plan was resurrected by Ohio's Hiram College in the 1930s.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                   73

and for the State Examination in Pharmacy, but are limited as to time and ex-

penditure," and a two-year course leading to the Ph.G. degree, "designed to

thoroughly prepare the capable student to begin the practice of scientific or

manufacturing pharmacy." The work thus demanded the full attention of the

students, who were engaged in laboratory for two to six hours daily. The un-

usually rigorous curriculum was designed to be "both compact and compre-

hensive," and prospective students were advised that "not part of the work, ei-

ther in text-book or in the laboratories, may be omitted or slighted." The

Department also required students to pass the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy

examination as a prerequisite to their receiving the Ph.G. degree. The entire

cost of a year's instruction, including room and board, would not, according

to the announcement, exceed $200.⁹⁸

The Department's seven-man faculty was assisted by an advisory council of

pharmacists and physicians that controlled the curriculum and revised it from

time to time to keep the Department "in touch and accordant with the best in-

terests of the profession." Prospective students were assured that none of the

instruction was laid down on denominational lines; rather, the intent was to

"surround students with an atmosphere of moral and Christian influences, but

devoid of sectarian bias." Moreover, the Department took pains to stave off

the unsavory reputations of the "cram schools" by discouraging the attendance

of "those who have no higher ambition than to prepare themselves in the

shortest space of time to pass the examinations of the State Board, without

any further thought as to qualification or fitness."⁹⁹

Nevertheless, competitive pressures began to take their toll. In 1899, the

Department offered a "Special or Review Course," intended for the benefit of

students who had "only a limited time to bestow upon the study of phar-

98. "Synopsis of the Course of Instruction," Annual Announcement of the Department of

Pharmacy of Scio College, 1891-1892 (Scio, 1891), 9-10; "Requirements for Admission and

Graduation," 18; and "Fees and Expenses," 19, Kremers Reference Files. The condensed

Ph.G. curriculum included inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry,

botany, study of the Dispensatory and examination of drugs, materia medica and pharmacog-

nosy, and anatomy and physiology. The Ph.C. curriculum added advanced general and

theoretical chemistry, advanced qualitative and quantitative analysis, chemical physics,

crystallography, analysis of potable waters and toxicology, Latin, advanced microscopy and

pharmacognosy, preparation and purification of medicinal chemicals, bacteriology, "practice

in preparing the more elaborate and difficult preparations of the Pharmacopoeia," and a thesis.

The Scio curricula also avoided the "curse of the city colleges," which typically taught classes

three days a week for two years to allow students the opportunity to pursue part-time

employment in area drug stores. See "Synopsis of the Course of Instruction," 10-16; and Beal

to Elliott, 1-2.

99. "Character of the School," Annual Announcement of the Department of Pharmacy of

Scio College, 1894-1895 (Scio, 1894), 7 and 11-12, Kremers Reference Files. The Department

also discouraged students from abandoning other callings to embrace the profession of phar-

macy, believing such a course to be "opposed to the best interest of the profession." At the

time, obligatory laboratory work totaled 836 hours in the Ph.G. course and 1,656 hours in the

Ph.C. course. Ibid., 10-11.

74                                                               OHIO HISTORY

macy." Regular students, however, were still prohibited from seeking outside

employment.¹⁰⁰ By 1902, the Department had acquired collegiate status and

had graduated 202 students in the two programs. The following year, the new

College held out the prospect of a "full college course" to the graduates of

these programs, conferring the degree of Bachelor of Science or that of

Analytical Chemist.¹⁰¹ In 1906, the College abandoned its Ph.G. program

and added a three-year Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum.¹⁰² Despite these pro-

gressive actions, the lure of the big-city schools and colleges of pharmacy

proved to be irresistible to more and more students. In 1908, the Scio

College of Pharmacy merged with the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy, clos-

ing two decades of service to Ohio pharmacy.¹⁰³

Ohio Medical University. The most determined bid for the attention and

custom of potential pharmacy students in the central Ohio area came from the

Department of Pharmacy of the Ohio Medical University, founded in

Columbus in 1892. A determined rival of the Starling Medical College,

which had served Columbus since 1848,104 the new University boasted a

100. "Length of Courses," Annual Announcement of the Department of Pharmacy, Scio

College, 1899-1900 (Scio, 1899), 6; and "General Information," Annual Announcement of the

Department of Pharmacy of Scio College, 1900-1901 (Scio, 1900), 21, Kremers Reference

Files. Also see "Employment for Students," ibid. No entrance examination was required for

the review course, students being allowed to enter the course at any time and pursue any stud-

ies for which they were qualified.

101. See "Courses of Instruction and Degrees," Annual Catalogue and Announcement of the

Scio College of Pharmacy, Department of Scio College, 1902-1903 (Scio, 1902), 6; and

"Additional Degrees," Annual Announcement and Catalogue of the Scio College of Pharmacy

and Chemistry, Department of Scio College, 1903-1904 (Scio, 1903), 6; and "Alumni Register,"

22-32, Kremers Reference Files.

102. "Courses of Instruction and Degrees," Scio College of Pharmacy and Chemistry . . .

Prospectus, Eighteenth Annual Session, 1906-1907 (Scio, 1906), 7, Kremers Reference Files.

The College required a high school education or its equivalent for admission to the Pharm.D.

program, which included three terms of Latin or Greek, three terms of German or French,

three terms of systematic and economic geology, three terms of physiology and pathological

chemistry, three terms of synthesis and testing of organic compounds, mineralogy, advanced

toxicological analysis, advanced organic analysis, technological chemistry, advanced chemical

philosophy, and a thesis. See "Requirements for Admission." 5; and "Leading to Degree of

Doctor of Pharmacy," 24-25 in ibid. The Pharm.D. curriculum produced only three graduates.

See Beal to Elliott, 2.

103. Beal to Elliott, 2-3. Because students in pharmacy "would not go to a small town," the

College experienced "an uphill struggle" until the merger. Beal served on the Pittsburgh fac-

ulty until 1912, when he resigned to become secretary of the American Pharmaceutical

Association.

104. Both institutions trace their lineage to the Medical Department of Willoughby University

of Lake Erie, chartered by the Ohio General Assembly on March 3, 1834. Located in the

northeastern corner of Cuyahoga County, the new Department seemed to fill a void between

Fairfield Medical College in Western New York, 400 miles to the east, and Cincinnati's

Medical College in Ohio; there were no medical schools in any state west of Ohio at the time.

The Department soon acquired a good reputation, but in 1843, internal dissension and public

clamor over the methods used in securing dissecting material led four of the five faculty to re-

sign and form the Cleveland Medical College, the medical department of Western Reserve

Pharmaceutical Education                                                       75

school of medicine, a school of dentistry, a school of pharmacy, and held out

prospects for a school of midwifery and a training school for nurses.

Moreover, the new University adopted the recitation plan of instruction and

gave laboratory work and clinical medicine a prominent place in the course of

instruction. As chancellor, the trustees hired Dr. James F. Baldwin, a bril-

liant surgeon.¹⁰⁵ For dean of his new Department of Pharmacy, Baldwin

hired the redoubtable James H. Beal, who was concurrently serving as dean of

the Scio College of Pharmacy.¹⁰⁶

Beal's curriculum covered two six-month terms spread over two years and

closely paralleled the offerings of his Scio school; his seven-man faculty

College. By 1847, it became clear that the region could not support two medical schools, and

the General Assembly authorized the trustees of the University to move its Medical

Department to Columbus and caused it to be renamed the "Willoughby Medical College at

Columbus." The new school received the hearty support of many civic-minded citizens, in-

cluding city founder Lyne Starling, who made a gift of $35,000 to the College on the condition

that it would establish and sustain a hospital for the sick poor; shortly thereafter, the trustees

and faculty voted to change the name of the institution to "Starling Medical College" out of

gratitude to the donor. The cost of constructing the elaborate Norman Gothic building decided

upon had been grossly underestimated, however, and the faculty labored without pay for over

two decades to retire the $40,000 debt. In 1865, the College leased its hospital facilities to the

Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis, which was renamed "St. Francis Hospital." Despite this bur-

den, the reputation of the faculty grew and the College prospered. In 1874, however, dis-

agreement over a vacancy in the Chair of Materia Medica led to the resignation of four promi-

nent physicians, who organized a rival school, the Columbus Medical College in 1875. The

new College had a strong faculty and soon attracted donations for its own building and its own

hospital, the Hawkes Hospital of Mt. Carmel. In 1891, following the death of the chief protag-

onist, Dr. John W. Hamilton, negotiations for a reconciliation began; in 1892, the Columbus

Medical College suspended operations as a separate teaching body and merged back into the

Starling Medical College. Some of the Columbus Medical College faculty had grander plans,

however. That same year, under the guidance of Dr. James F. Baldwin, they organized a new

and competing institution, the Ohio Medical University. See Jonathan Forman, "Early

American Medical Schools: The College of Medicine of the Ohio State University," Surgery,

Gynecology and Obstetrics, 61 (July, 1935), 124-27; Linden F. Edwards, "Centenary

Anniversary of the Oldest Medical College Hospital in the United States-St. Francis Hospital,

Columbus, Ohio," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 26 (May-June, 1952), 269-74; Frederick

C. Waite, "An Historical Sketch of the Willoughby Medical College (1834-1847)," in The Ohio

State University College of Medicine: A Collection of Source Material Covering a Century of

Medical Progress, 1834-1934 (Blanchester, 1934), 36-41; Starling Loving, "History of Starling

Medical College," in ibid., 146-54; and "Dr. [David Tod] Gilliam's Statement Concerning the

Founding of Columbus Medical College," in ibid., 211.

105. "Articles of Incorporation of the Ohio Medical University," in ibid., 237; and Forman,

op. cit., 127. The two-year midwifery department was established in 1896. See "Department

of Midwifery: Announcement," Fifth Annual Announcement of the Ohio Medical University

Departments of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, Columbus, Ohio, Calendar for 1896-1897

(Columbus, 1896), 71-73, Nathaniel R. Colman Medical Library, College of Medicine, The

Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio [hereinafter referred to as "Coleman Library"].

106. In his efforts to keep the Scio College of Pharmacy solvent, Beal had adopted a peri-

patetic life style. In 1896, for example, he helped found the Pittsburgh Dental College, com-

muting on weekends to teach chemistry and dental metallurgy. In 1900, he began lecturing at

the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy, being elected chairman of its faculty the following year.

See Beal to Elliott, 2; and "Ohio News Notes," American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record,

38 (June 10, 1901), 346.

76                                                             OHIO HISTORY

taught inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, physio-

logical chemistry, theory and practice of pharmacy, botany, study of the

Dispensatory, examination of drugs, materia medica, and pharmacognosy.

An unique feature of the Department was the opportunity for advance students

to obtain actual practice in prescription work in the dispensaries operated by

the University. Successful candidates were awarded the Ph.G. degree. Fees

did not exceed $60 per year. Declaring that "the province of the professor is

properly directive or explanatory," the initial Announcement explained that

students would study the "settled principles of the Theory and Art of

Pharmacy" in the standard textbooks of the day, the progress of the students

being "regularly tested by daily or weekly examinations or recitations" con-

ducted by the professor in charge.¹⁰⁷ A "good common school education"

was the only requirement for admission, although three years' practical expe-

rience with a person "qualified to conduct the retail drug business" was re-

quired for graduation. In 1893, the University constructed a large, four-story

building on Park Street opposite Goodale Park and entered into agreements

with Protestant Hospital and the hospital of the Ohio Penitentiary for the ex-

clusive use of their clinical material.¹⁰⁸ Despite these advantages, the

Department of Pharmacy appeared to be struggling: John Rauschkolb,

Ph.D., succeeded Beal as dean in 1893, only to be succeeded himself the fol-

lowing year by Nathan L. Burner, F.C.S.; the rate of faculty turnover was

alarmingly high, and while enrollment averaged sixteen students over the first

two years, only two graduated. "We have entirely ABANDONED FINAL

EXAMINATIONS," the 1893 Announcement exclaimed shrilly,explaining that

students would be graded upon their daily oral recitations and a written recita-

tion at the close of each term.¹⁰⁹

107. "Department of Pharmacy: Course of Instruction," Announcement of the Ohio Medical

University, Columbus, Ohio, Session of 1892-'93, Departments of Medicine, Dentistry and

Pharmacy (Columbus, 1892), 26-32; and "Department of Pharmacy: Objects and Methodist,"

in ibid., 25, Coleman Library. The Department's initial faculty consisted of Beal, who taught

chemistry and theory and practice of pharmacy, W. W. Meggenhofen, who taught theory and

practice of pharmacy, John Rauschkolb, who taught botany, Matthias Eis, who taught practical

chemistry, Clovis M. Taylor, M.D., who taught physiology, Claude C. Bolon, M.D., who taught

microscopy, and Gilbert H. Bargar, LL.B., who taught pharmaceutical jurisprudence. See

"Department of Pharmacy: Faculty," in ibid., 24.

108. "Our Building" and "Clinical Facilities," Second Annual Announcement of the Ohio

Medical University Departments of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, Columbus, Ohio,

Calendar, 1893-1894 (Columbus, 1893), 9, Coleman Library; and Forman, loc. cit. By 1898,

three additional four-story facilities had been constructed. Also see "Requirements for

Admission" and "Requirements for Graduation," Announcement of the Department of

Pharmacy of the Ohio Medical University, Departments of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Dentistry,

Columbus, Ohio, Calendar, 1893-1894 (Columbus, 1893), 7, Coleman Library.

109. "Announcement" in ibid., 3. The new plan would "surpass the old system," the

Announcement claimed, "as it maintains a constant stimulus to thorough work." Also see

"Faculty" and "Matriculates, 1892-'93" in ibid., 2 and 8; and "Faculty," "Matriculates, 1893-

'94," and "Graduates," Third Annual Announcement of the Department of Pharmacy of the

78                                                              OHIO HISTORY

By 1898, however, enrollment had declined precipitously; the practical experi-

ence requirement for graduating from the Department of Pharmacy was reduced

to two years. The following year, this requirement and the thesis were elimi-

nated entirely, with but indifferent results.111

During these same years, however, an imbroglio over a proposed merger

with the Ohio State University erupted, which resulted in the expulsion of

Baldwin as chancellor and professor and the resignation of six prominent fac-

ulty members. The affair also led to the resignation of Ohio State University

President James H. Canfield and created a cloud of vituperation which would

delay any talk of such a merger for the next sixteen years.l¹² The Ohio

Medical University could have survived the unsavory publicity surrounding

the ill-fated merger proposal or it could have sustained the loss of its most

prominent faculty members, but not both. These factors, coupled with the

ever-increasing indebtedness, made institutional collapse almost inevitable.

Still, the University struggled on. As chancellor, the trustees chose Dr.

David N. Kinsman, a respected internist; as new dean of the beleaguered

Also see "Graduates of Ohio Medical University," Starling-Ohio Medical College,

Departments of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, January Bulletin, 1912-13, 6 (January,

1913), 64-90, Special Collections, Main Library, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

[hereinafter referred to as "Special Collections"].

111.  "Department of Pharmacy:   Requirements for Graduation," Seventh Annual

Announcement of the Ohio Medical University Departments of Medicine, Dentistry and

Pharmacy, Columbus, Ohio, Calendar for 1898-1899 (Columbus, 1898), 69; and "Department

of Pharmacy: Requirements for Graduation," Eighth Annual Announcement of the Ohio

Medical University Departments of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, Columbus, Ohio,

Calendar for 1899-1900 (Columbus, 1899), 58-59, Coleman Library. In lieu of these require-

ments, candidates for graduation were to secure "competent standing in all branches of the

curriculum," determined by daily grading and term examinations, and present a "certificate of

good moral character." The number of graduates continued to average about six per year,

however. See "Graduates of Ohio Medical University," loc. cit.

112. In 1897, Canfield had called together a conference of representatives from both the

Starling Medical College and the Ohio Medical University to consider the desirability and fea-

sibility of a union of the schools to form a new medical department at Ohio State University.

Although the proposed merger would have relieved the Ohio Medical University of its consid-

erable indebtedness, seven of the University's twenty trustees, reacting to unfavorable agita-

tion among their students, forced through a resolution putting an end to all efforts at consolida-

tion. Canfield's second attempt, directed to about twenty individual faculty members at each

school, received an even swifter rebuff, and gained him the enmity of those who presumably

would not be asked to join the proposed new department. Charges and countercharges pep-

pered both the professional and the lay press across the state, which in turn, alarmed the fac-

ulty and the trustees of the State University, who were understandably reluctant to absorb what

had been increasingly represented as a substandard medical school, particularly one which

carried with it not only a large indebtedness, but also a proposed operating budget nearly equal

to the operating expenses of the entire University. Canfield resigned May 9, 1899; on June 30,

his successor, William Oxley Thompson, convinced the trustees that the plan was impractical

and must be abandoned. See Charges, Evidence and Arguments on which Dr. J. F. Baldwin

was Expelled as Chancellor and Professor of Operative Gynecology by the Trustees of the Ohio

Medical University (Columbus, 1899), 128; [James F. Baldwin,] The Ohio Medical University

Imbroglio: Personal Malice, Jealousy, and Ambition, vs. the Demands for Higher Standards

(Cincinnati, 1899), 4-31, both in Special Collections; and Cope, op. cit., 267-76.

Pharmaceutical Education                                                       79

Department of Pharmacy, Kinsman chose George H. Matson, Jr., Ph.G.113

By 1907, however, the University could no longer continue as an independent

entity. On March 13, representatives of the University agreed to merge with

the Starling Medical College to form a new entity, the Starling-Ohio Medical

College. Ohio State University President William Oxley Thompson was

elected president of the board of trustees of the new College; Professor of

Horticulture William R. Lazenby was elected secretary. Clearly, the

University had a stake in the new venture. 114

After some delay, the trustees chose Harry R. Burbacher, Ph.G., as dean of

the Department of Pharmacy of the new College. A 1905 alumnus of the

Department, Burbacher continued to offer the truncated curriculum that had

evolved. Despite the considerable talents of faculty such as Ohio State's

William McPherson, who had also taught chemistry in the Department since

1903, the number of students registered in the Department remained disap-

pointingly low.¹¹⁵ Unendowed and entirely dependent upon tuition, which

had increased to $85 per year, the new College faced an uncertain financial fu-

ture. In 1909, Dr. William J. Means replaced Dr. George M. Waters as dean

of the Department of Medicine and immediately began encouraging

113. "Department of Pharmacy: Faculty," Ninth Annual Announcement of the Ohio Medical

University Departments of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, Columbus, Ohio, Calendar for

1900-1901 (Columbus, 1900), 59, Coleman Library; and "Ohio Medical University: Officers

and Faculty," in The Ohio State University College of Medicine, 242 and 248. An 1892 gradu-

ate of the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, Matson secured a M.D. degree from

Ohio Medical University in 1905 and later became Secretary of the Ohio State Board of

Medical Registration. See "Graduates of Ohio Medical University," 79; and "College of

Pharmacy," Ohio State University Bulletin Alumni Register, 11 (November, 1906), 103, Special

Collections.

114. "Articles of Agreement for Merger of Starling Medical College with the Ohio Medical

University into the Starling-Ohio Medical College," in The Ohio State University College of

Medicine, 273-85. The Ohio Medical University deeded all of its property to the new College

which in turn assumed over $30,000 in notes and unpaid bills. Ibid., 283-84. "By combining

the teaching forces and clinical facilities of the two schools a stronger institution has been

made than either could hope to become as an independent organization," the initial Bulletin

declared. "Columbus has long been known as a medical center of no mean rating, and it is

proposed by the united efforts of her best medical men to not only maintain such reputation but

make her name even greater.... no city in the Middle West has men more experience or

better known for their capabilities as teachers of medicine." "Starling Ohio Medical College:

Mergement," Starling Ohio Medical College Bulletin, Information Concerning Departments of

Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, 1 (1907-1908), 5, Special Collections.

115. "Starling Ohio Medical College: Department Officers," ibid., 6. The two-year, sixty-

eight-week curriculum included 340 hours of instruction in the theory and practice of phar-

macy, 170 hours of instruction in chemistry, 68 hours of instruction in physiology, in botany, in

materia medica, and in toxicology, and 24 hours of instruction in microscopy in addition to over

900 hours of laboratory instruction.  See "Department of Pharmacy:   Curriculum,"

"Department of Pharmacy: Fees," and "Department of Pharmacy: Matriculates 1906-1907,"

in ibid., 42, 44, and 41. Up to this time, the Department of Pharmacy had graduated only 84

students, barely seven percent of the former University's 1,155 alumni. See "Summary of

Departments," Ohio Medical University Bulletin. Information Concerning Colleges of

Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, 2 (1906-1907), 52, Special Collections.

80                                                             OHIO HISTORY

Thompson to reconsider his earlier opposition to a merger with Ohio State

University. By 1913, Means had prevailed. On January 10, the trustees of

the College offered to transfer all College property to the University if it

would establish a College of Medicine and a College of Dentistry and accept