Cushman: Growing Medicinal Plants in America 



37 



The experience gained by the author 

 in the production of certain drug plants 

 extending over the past three years con- 

 firms the statements of the experts 

 quoted above. The fact is very clearly 

 brought out that the so-called "back- 

 yard" movement, however muc:h it may 

 stimulate vegetable gardening and poul- 

 try raising, is not applicable to the 

 growing of medicinal plants. The U. 

 S. P. requirement for dry belladonna 

 herb or leaf calls for an assay showing 

 a content of not less than 0.3% atropine 

 alkaloid. Any substantial quantity of 

 active constituent in excess of this pre- 

 scribed minimum should, if the pro- 

 ducer is aware of it, be credited in the 

 price paid by the consumer. The small 

 producer can have no knowledge of the 

 assay value of his product unless he 

 employs the services of a chemical 

 laboratory. Such chemical assays re- 

 quire special highly paid exj^erts in 

 order to obtain accurate results, and 

 the cost of such service is naturally 

 high. In the opinion of the writer, 

 unless a producer is able to hold his 

 belladonna to an assay value at least 

 twice as strong as the U. S. P. require- 

 ment, it would not be worth producing 

 at all under American conditions. Such 

 high-potency crude drugs can be ob- 

 tained only by the application to the 

 problem of trained scientific knowledge. 

 Plant breeding through seed selection 

 and a knowledge of just the day to har- 

 vest when the alkaloidal content is at 

 the maximum, together with proper 

 control of the drying operations, con- 

 stitute a large part of the se:cret of 

 success. All this necessarily hangs upon 

 the results of laboratory investigation, 

 which must go on hand in hand with 

 the agricultural operations. The au- 

 thor and his associates have produced 

 belladonna in bulk running almost 1% 

 alkaloid-atropin. 



Other important medicinal crops, 

 such as digitalis and cannabis, present 

 a special problem, inasmuch as the ac- 

 tive constituents are not determinable 

 by chemical assay, but depend upon cer- 

 tain specific physiological tests which 

 require the services of another group 

 of trained specialists. 



In marketing crude drugs the phar- 

 macopoeial requirements must be met, 

 no matter how irrational these may be. 

 The requirement on cannabis calls for 

 the dried flowering tops of unfertilized 

 pistillate or female plants only. This 

 specification requires that before the 

 male plants pollinate experts must go 

 over the entire crop, plant by plant, 

 and distinguish and destroy every male 

 individual. Immediately the visible crop 

 shrinks approximately 50%, and also 

 adds to its cost of production the cost 

 of this wholesale weeding operation. 

 This requirement also necessitates the 

 seed gardens being remote enough 

 from the main crop to prevent wind- 

 blown pollen from reaching the female 

 survivors. In order to test the necessity 

 for this requirement, the author, in 

 cooperation with Mr. H. C. Fuller, 

 gathered from the seed gardens flower- 

 ing male tops, which were dried, pow- 

 dered, and bottled. This sample, to- 

 gether with a pharmacopoeial sample 

 bearing distinguishing numbers but no 

 other information, was sent tO' the phys- 

 iological laboratory of the Harvard 

 Medical School. The report showed 

 the male sample was the more physio- 

 logically active of the two. Although 

 the pharmacopoeial requirement is prob- 

 ably a survival of some superstition 

 originating in India, the drug-plant 

 grower is held rigidly to it, and it is ex- 

 tremely unlikely that any buyer would 

 purchase the crude drug in the pow- 

 dered form, as the dried flowers must 

 be present so that inspection will detect 

 the presence of male plants. If such 

 specifications are annoying to the com- 

 mercial drug grower, they would be 

 found intolerable by an ordinary farmer 

 who might otherwise feel inclined to 

 undertake the production of this special 

 crop. 



AH medicinal plants are intensely 

 poisonous to animals, but, curiously 

 enough, most of them are very attract- 

 ive to predatory insects. Possibly in- 

 sects share with man a weakness for 

 certain things that would better be let 

 alone. However this may be, the au- 

 thor has determined by actual experi- 



