GROWING MEDICINAL 



PLANTS IN AMERICA' 



Allerton S. Cushman, Ph.D. 



Lieutenant Colonel, Ordnance Department, N. A. 



Formerly Director, The Institute of Industrial Research, Washington, D. C. 



MODERN warfare may be 

 roughly divided into two dis- 

 tinct phases : one is destructive 

 and the other reconstructive. 

 There are no longer crucial battles 

 which decide the issue of war as at 

 Waterloo or Gettysburg, but there is in- 

 stead one protracted and unceasing ef- 

 fort to destroy the enemy's life and 

 property on the largest scale possible. 

 Nevertheless, the reconstructive work 

 must follow the destructive on an 

 equally gigantic scale. Never before in 

 the history of mankind has such organ- 

 ization existed for the first-aid and sub- 

 sequent treatment of the sick and 

 wounded, and never before has there 

 been such concentrated human and ani- 

 mal suffering calling for alleviation. 



It is a curious dispensation of Provi- 

 dence that man first found, and still to 

 a very large extent depends for his 

 remedial and anesthetic agencies on, 

 the familiar herbs and weeds which 

 grow wild about his woods, fields and 

 hedgerows. The term "drug'' includes 

 all substances used as medicines, as 

 well as those substances which may be 

 misused as intoxicants or anesthetics. 

 Drugs may be mineral, such as the 

 bromides, iodides, and chlorates of po- 

 tassium, the mercurial, arsenical, and 

 silver compounds and many others. In 

 addition to these, modern medicine de- 

 pends largely on the coal-tar deriva- 

 tives, among which may be mentioned 

 some of the more familiar, as, for in- 

 stance, acetanilid, phenacetin, and the 

 various salicylates, under such trade 

 names as aspirin and salol, owned and 

 exploited before the war exclusively by 



the Germans. The present paper, how- 

 ever, concerns itself particularly with 

 the raw materials from which such 

 medicinal agents as the alkaloids and 

 glucosides are extracted. These are rep- 

 resented by morphine, cocaine, strych- 

 nine, atropine, quinine, digitalin, stro- 

 phanthin aloin, etc., which are extracted 

 from crude drugs imported into this 

 country from overseas. 



It is, however, more particularly the 

 botanical drugs which can be grown 

 under proper scientific control in the 

 United States which we shall consider. 

 Among these we find the following im- 

 portant medicinal plants : Aconite, bel- 

 ladonna, and stramonium, the principal 

 source of atropine, digitalis (foxglove), 

 cannabis indica or Indian hemp, the ac- 

 tive principal of which is known in 

 India as hashish, the properties of 

 which the elder Dumas so beautifully 

 misdescribes in "The Count of Monte 

 Cristo." 



Among our native medicinal plants 

 we also use in fairly large quantity hen- 

 bane, rhubarb, senna, gentian, golden 

 seal (hydrastis), senega, mandrake, 

 bloodroot, arnica; ajowan seeds, and 

 monada punctata, used in the manufac- 

 ture of thymol, a specific in the treat- 

 ment of the hookworm disease, and 

 many others too numerous to mention. 

 If a layman, unaccustomed to the study 

 of such subjects, were to pick up one 

 of the great New York commercial 

 daily newspapers which quote prices in 

 the drug markets and were to glance 

 over the items quoted he would proba- 

 bly be very much astonished at the fa- 

 miliar herbs, roots, and flowers which 



iReprinted from the Journal of The Franklin Institute. September, 1918, with additional 

 comment by the author on the present situation. 

 32 



