REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1918. 77 



fruits, fungi, gums, gum resins, herbs, juices, leaves, petals, pith, 

 pulp, rhizomes, rinds, roots, seeds, strobiles, tops, tubers, whole 

 plants, and woods. 



The Museum is indebted to Merck & Co., of New York City, for 

 43 specimens of chemicals made synthetically, and to The Heyden 

 Chemical Works, also of New York City, for 16 specimens of synthetic 

 medicinal chemicals. The number of drugs manufactured syntheti- 

 cally increases with the advance in chemistry, and at the present time 

 this class is very numerous. Many of the synthetic chemicals dete- 

 riorate in a comparatively short time, but the 43 specimens contributed 

 by Merck & Co. were selections of the more stable compounds of this 

 kind which will not undergo color or other changes for a considerable 

 length of time. 



Of more than ordinary interest from an educational standpoint was 

 a gift of 36 specimens by Frederick Stearns & Co., of Detroit, Mich- 

 igan, illustrating the following classes of plant constituents: Alka- 

 loids, fats, ferments, fixed oils, glucosides, gums, mucilages, oleores- 

 ins, plant acids, resins, saccharides, simple bitters, starches, sugars, 

 tannins, volatile oils, and waxes. 



Opium and its derivatives are undoubtedly the best known of the 

 narcotic drugs, and, for the purpose of having this drug properly 

 represented in the collections, there were obtained by contribution 

 from the Hoffman-LaRoche Chemical Works, of New York City, one 

 sample of Persian gum opium and nine specimens of opium products. 



Samples of cinchona bark, 4 from Ecuador and 12 from the Nether- 

 lands Indies, and two samples of aloes from Curacao, West Indies, 

 were transferred to the division from the Pharmacognosy Labora- 

 tory, Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture. From the 

 Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Co., of New York City, were ob- 

 tained by gift 11 specimens of inorganic chemicals and one sample 

 of medicinal soap, and from the William S. Merrell Chemical Co., of 

 Cincinnati, Ohio, one specimen of natural oil of sweet birch, 2 speci- 

 mens of salicylic acid, and 4 specimens of salicylates. 



Cascara sagrada is a shrub indigenous to northern California, 

 Washington, Oregon, and the southwestern part of British America. 

 The bark, the part used in medicine, is collected in spring and early 

 summer and kept at least a year before being used. The active prin- 

 ciples are extracted from the bark, after it has been powdered, by the 

 percolation process with alcohol. This medicine belongs to the 

 group of vegetable cathartics whose activity depends upon one or 

 more oxides of methylanthraquinone. Its chief active principle is 

 emodin. Cascara sagrada, in the form of the official extract and 

 fluid extract, is a very popular medicine and is one of the well-known 

 drugs which it is proposed to illustrate in detail. With a view to 



