134 Kansas Academy of Science. 



thing to cultivate the raising of our own medicinal plants in 

 this country, but I shall not do more than call attention to the 

 correspondence I have had with Mr. W. W. Stockberger, plant 

 physiologist of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. 

 C, in which a discussion was carried on with regard to the 

 establishment of a medicinal plant garden in connection with 

 the school of pharmancy of the University of Kansas. I desire 

 to quote from his letter in full to show the position this eminent 

 authority takes with regard to the matter : 



"The establishment and proper support of a medicinal plant garden 

 as an adjunct to the college of pharmacy of your University should be of 

 direct and practical benefit (a) to the students, (b) to the University, (c) 

 to the people of the state. The students should profit largely from such 

 an enterprise through the fact that they are brought into direct con- 

 tact with medicinal plants in their living state, and learn at first hand 

 the processes through which the fresh plant material must pass before 

 it becomes the finished drug. Thus they will gain a working basis for 

 their ideas regarding the necessity for the high standard of purity in 

 crude drugs, as well as with respect to the opportunities for sophistica- 

 tion or impairment of quality through faulty methods of preparation and 

 handling. Their interest and appreciation of materia medica will re- 

 ceive a great stimulus through their contact in an objective way with 

 crude drugs during their preparation. Very important to the students 

 also vdll be the grounding in the economics of the crude-drug trade which 

 they will receive through the proper course of instruction which can be 

 given in connection with the garden. The student who makes a careful 

 record of the expenditure of labor (preferably his own) necessary to 

 produce a given quantity of drug, and then, after marketing the same, 

 deducts from his return a fair allowance for his work, will not be likely 

 to become infected with the erroneous ideas now only too prevalent 

 concerning the enormous profits to be derived from the commercial pro- 

 duction of medicinal plants. 



"To the University a medicinal plant garden is an invaluable aid and 

 resource in the teaching of materia medica, pharmacognosy, botany and 

 forestry. The medicinal plant garden will furnish much of the living- 

 material necessary for the first year's work in botany, and in the phar- 

 macy school a double purpose will be served by using medicinal plants as 

 working materials in teaching morphology and general plant histology. 

 A medicinal garden also offers the student the means for pursuing the 

 study of the production of the actual drugs in the field and practice in 

 their collection and preparation. The supply of living plants which can 

 be obtained from the garden will enormously increase the facilities for 

 research work by the students of pharmacy. Most of the specifications 

 regarding time and method of collecting, curing and preserving crude 

 drugs are based on tradition and not on scientific experiment, and the 

 determination of the relative value of our present requirements with 

 respect to the preparation of drugs off"ers an almost limitless field of 



