A Contribution to Western Pennsylvania Pharmacy

A History of the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy 1878-1958

By Edward C. Reif & Thelma C. Reif

Published in 1959 by the University of Pittsburgh Press

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-12565

Copyright, The University of Pittsburgh Press

Dedication
Foreword
Authors' Preface
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations with links

Dedication

Dedicated to

George A. Kelly, Sr.

and the other pioneers who worked so diligently and faithfully to insure pharmaceutical education in Western Pennsylvania.

Foreword

This book, like others of its kind, is a labor of love. It was written in the space of months, but it represents years of endeavor in collecting large and small items that go to make up the truly factual account of events in the history of a school.

As the first dean of the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy, I know the constant struggle in starting the enterprise and in keeping it going. At a time when educational standards, curricula, faculty and graduation requirements, and all manner of policies had to be formulated, weighed, tried out, and sometimes discarded, the future of the school always stood before us as our goal.

That future, much of which is now the present, has been justified. The School has reached a high pinnacle of attainment, and from its seventy-five years of rigorous effort will go on to increasing greatness in the field of pharmaceutical education.

Julius A. Koch
Emeritus Dean

Authors' Preface

This School of Pharmacy has a history which brings to the attention of others many events initiated and promoted by a group of sincere and farsighted men who made numerous sacrifices for a much needed school. Their activities resulted in progressive strides in pharmaceutical education in Western Pennsylvania. It would be remiss, if, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, we failed to put into print some of their accomplishments.

Some individuals realized early the need for measures to insure better public health, the need for an academic education of the person whose prime function was to compound and dispense medicines, and the need for improvement in basic scientific knowledge. A call was, therefore, sent forth to bring about an organization of the pharmacists then living in this area whose method of training had been chiefly by apprentice-preceptor relationship. This resulted in the formation of the Pharmaceutical Association of Allegheny County on September 20, 1871.

The early pharmaceutical educational activities of this group of pharmacists was started as a simple course of organized lectures in a properly chartered institution, The Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy. This course supplemented the practical knowledge of the apprentice. Thus a system of education began which since has expanded to many courses and a great variety of curriculums spreading over an increasing number of years.

This work attempts to show how The School of Pharmacy played an important part in meeting the many conditions which made necessary a continuous and broadening system of pharmaceutical education.

Our thanks to the staffs in the following libraries who were so gen-erous with their time, ideas, and help in locating material; The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh Academy of Medicine; The Medical and Dental Library, University of Pittsburgh; Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania; and The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny.

We, too, are grateful and deeply appreciate the help afforded us by Miss Marianne Ratay, Miss Ann Zilonis, Dr. George W. Kutscher, Miss Hulda Ihsen, Dr. Frederick J. Blumenschein, Mrs. Ernest Percival, Miss Grace Kelly, Miss Eleanor P. Kelly, Mr. Edward C. Ifft, Mr. Bernard Schiller, Mr. William Pettit, Miss Dorothy English, Mr. Robert R. Gaw, Mr. William L. Blockstein, Miss Alice McCann, and the late Doctors Julius A. Koch, John H. Wurdack, Louis Saalbach, Mr. O. C. Sarver, and Mr. Fred Schiller.

We also wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Faculty of The School of Pharmacy, the editorial help of Miss Dorothy Nuttall, the help of those who have prepared statements especially for publication in this book, and the services of many others in innumerable ways. We are appreciative and most grateful for the help and encouragement of Mr. O. M. Reif.

And our special thanks to Mrs. Agnes L. Starrett, University editor and director of the University Press, for her counsel and encouragement.

Edward C. Reif
Thelma C. Reif