340 CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



1867. important uses, this high price leads to inquiry abroad and 

 usually to the shipment of large supplies, often so much too 

 Fluctuation large as to involve the owners of the commodity in great loss, 

 of imported ^ reaction ensues, no one will import what has been unremune- 

 rative, and consequently after the lapse of time the drug grows 

 scarce, until the price mounts to a figure high enough to tempt 

 a fresh importation. The scarcity of old-established drugs is 

 dependent on a variety of circumstances, some of which are 

 curious from the remoteness of their effects. Thus the demand 

 for cotton consequent on the war in the United States, stimu- 

 lated the culture of that crop in Asia Minor ; and as the growing 

 and picking of cotton required many hands, the wages of the 

 peasantry so greatly advanced that it was less profitable than 

 usual to collect Scammony, and hence a reduced supply and 

 enhanced price of that drug. 



Political convulsions impeding the freedom of commerce, also 

 operate extensively in diminishing the exports of a country 

 and to such cause may be attributed the late high price of 

 snake-root, senega and other drugs of the United States. The 

 increased value of jalap is probably due to the unsettled state 

 of Mexico. 



Kino. East Indian kino of the best kind is a drug which during the 



past few years has become exceedingly scarce, or I might say has 

 ceased to be imported. Now this sort of kino, which was pro- 

 duced near Tellicherry, was a few years ago brought into com- 

 petition with kino from another district of India, which though 

 considered inferior in quality was freely sold and at a much 

 lower rate than the old drug. The price of Tellicherry kino 

 consequently fell enormously, and it would seem that the drug 

 has ceased to be brought into the market. 



Ipecacuanha. Ipecacuanha again has doubled in value since 1850 owing 

 partly, it is said, to the extirpation of the plant from old 

 habitats and the consequent necessity of collecting it from new 

 and more distant localities, and partly to the circumstance that 

 the stock of the drug is in the hands of but few persons, who 

 are thus able to restrict the export and in consequence to raise 

 the price. 



