38 POWDERED VEGETABLE DRUGS 



Most of the vegetable drugs used in the United States enter via 

 the port of New York. It is, reasonable to suppose that the importer 

 would strive to please the customers nearer the port of entry and the 

 center of business ; thus, as a perfectly natural consequence, the articles 

 of more or less inferior quality or those of second choice, fall to the 

 more remote customers. Most dealers deny that they handle a first 

 and a second quality article, but such is nevertheless the case. 



The Department of Agriculture has appointed special drug ex- 

 aminers, who are stationed at the several ports of the United States 

 with instructions to carefully examine all drugs appearing at the ports 

 of entry. This is being done, and yet a goodly percentage of drugs 

 now found in the United States are adulterated. This can be ex- 

 plained in several ways. It may be that a consignment which was 

 found to be adulterated and which was rejected by the special examiner 

 was simply reimported at some other point and thus entered into the 

 trade. It is also probable that in some instances hasty floor inspection 

 without careful micro-analytical verification, is responsible for the 

 admission of some adulterated vegetable drugs. This is especially 

 likely with such drugs as belladonna, scopola, hyoscyamus, stramonium 

 and certain of the barks, as coto, cinchonas, cascaras and a few others. 

 In the case of these and of other drugs having no marked distinguishing 

 macroscopic characteristics, the microscopic verification should never 

 be omitted. Of course, in the case of all broken, ground, powdered 

 and otherwise reduced or fragmentary drugs, the microscopic examina- 

 tion is all important. 



A drug may be of prime quality and reach the retailer in excellent 

 condition, and yet be entirely worthless by the time it reaches the 

 consumer (the patient). This worthlessness may be due to prolonged 

 though normal ageing, or the deteriorating process may have been 

 hastened by climatic conditions, inadequate packing and storing and 

 by attacking insect parasites and mold. Containers have been found 

 in retail stores which had not been opened for five years or more. 

 Again, the contents of some containers resembled a fertilizer, having 

 been completely decomposed by bacteria and higher fungi. In other 

 instances the entire storeroom was overrun by insect parasites which 

 had honeycombed the crude drugs and rendered them unfit for use. 

 The following are a few suggestions on how to remedy certain defects 

 quite commonly met with in retail drug stores and how to meet the 

 requirements of the pure drugs enactment, state as well as federal. 



1. Moldy Drugs. The prevalence of moldiness in powdered drugs 

 is due in part to the moist atmosphere and partly due to the fact that, 

 as a rule, there is no suitable arrangement to warm and dry out the 



