4 



ESSENTIALS OF VEGETABLE PHARMACOGNOSY. 



lieving them from attention to the greater 

 portion of the field. It is not to be over- 

 looked, however, that while such a proc- 

 ess of extensive exclusion is possible. 



If, on the other hand, he seeks the crude 



drug in commerce, he merely restricts his 

 phytography to the plant part under in- 

 spection, and so far from being by this 



utility requires that a corresponding de- consideration relieved from phytographi- 

 gree of elaboration shall be attained in cal labor, its requirements are the more 

 special directions. The faithful teacher, exacting and its methods the more refined. 



moreover, will not refrain from urging 

 as liberal an indulgence in extra-utilitarian 

 study as individual circumstances will 

 properly permit. The directions in which 



botanical knowledge is most useful to 

 practising pharmacists will determine the 

 most important requirements for botanical 

 study. The identification and selection of 

 drugs— that is to say, Pharmacognosy — 

 constitute the principal field for the exer- 



as the recognition and estimation of a 

 fragmentary representative becomes more 

 difficult than that of the complete indi- 

 vidual. As "Phytography" in its ordi- 

 nary employment is about equivalent to 

 "the study of the manifest organs of 

 plants," or of their gross units of struct- 

 ure, morphology becomes the key to the 

 situation. He who endeavors to under- 

 stand and familiarize himself with plant 



cise of botanical knowledge on the part structure by regarding the organs in a 



of the pharmacist, and it is those depart- 

 ments of botany which bear directly upon 

 this subject, and upon Materia Medica, to 

 which attention will be restricted in this 



essay. 



disconnected and arbitrary view encoun- 

 ters a tedious and uninviting task, and it 

 may truthfully be said that it is this 

 method or custom which has rendered 



the study of botany very much of a bete 



It is convenient to divide botanical noiVe in pharmacy. Proceeding upon the 



pharmacognosy, like vegetable anatomy, 

 into the gross and minute, the latter con- 

 cerning itself with those characters which 

 require the compound microscope for their 

 demonstration. Remembering that vege- 

 table drugs may consist of the entire 

 plant or of any one or more parts thereof, 

 and that they may reach the pharmacist 

 in any condition, from that of unbroken 

 or even fresh to that of a fine powder, the 

 department of botany necessarily pertain- 

 ing to pharmacognosy and materia med- 

 ica will appear as follows :~A knowledge 

 of classification or systematic botany, 

 while a prime necessity in medical botany, 

 there being a distinct co-relation between 

 natural classification and medicinal value, 

 is one of the less practical and essential 

 elements of pharmaceutical botany. Still, 

 it aids the student in the application of 

 phytography and especially in understand- 

 ing distribution, and it serves to crystal- 

 lize and systematize his knowledge of 

 groups of medicinal agents. A good 

 working knowledge of phytography mav 

 be regarded as the leading essential. If 

 the drug is to be sought by the pharmacist 

 in nature, he can recognize it only through 

 phytography, whether that knowledge be 

 acquired through folk lore or book lore. 



basis of morphology and recognizing in 

 the plant a structural unit through the 

 transformations of which the higher or 



more recently developed organs have 

 arisen, the study becomes in reality as in 

 name, natural history, and as full of 

 meaning and as entertaining a subject of 



thought as history of any other class. 

 Such pleasures, however, do not consti- 

 tute its justification in pharmacy, but 

 rather the fact that by so studying the 

 pharmacist effects a great economy of 

 time and fixes his knowledge beyond the 

 possibility of ready dislodgement. When 

 drugs come to hand in a comminuted con- 

 dition, as they really do In a vast majority 

 of cases, the compound microscope is the 

 only resource, and the department of plant 

 histology becomes the foundation of work. 

 As will be shown farther on, the greater 

 portion of this subject can be passed over, 

 hut that portion which receives attention, 

 permitting the recognition of detached 

 tissue elements and the determination by 

 their examination of tlieir source, requires 

 observations quite as careful and knowl- 

 edge quite as accurate as are called for in 

 any other portion of the field. In pur- 

 suing these observations micro-measure- 

 ment and micro-chemical manipulation 



