ADULTERATION OR SOPHISTICATION OF VEGETABLE DRUGS 63 



2. Intentional adulteration and misbranding by dealers and job- 

 bers, (a) Dealers may purchase inferior drugs from collectors and 

 sell them as first-class articles. This is very common practice, (b) 

 Foreign material is added to the drug and sold at a price below that of 

 the honest dealers; or (c) The dealer may maintain the price while 

 furnishing additional bulk to be sold over and above the amount that 

 can be sold by honest competitors. 



3. Intentional adulteration by practicing pharmacists. This is of 

 comparatively rare occurrence, as far as crude and powdered vegetable 

 drugs are concerned. The pharmacists' chief guilt and participation 

 in adulteration lies in the purchase and use of inferior, substandard, 

 adulterated, and otherwise objectionable and worthless drugs. 



4. Fraudulent testimony by scientists (botanists and chemists), 

 who for financial gain, prepare fraudulent reports as to the value of 

 new drugs and medicines or who stand sponsor for the fraudulent 

 claims of crooked manufacturers. These so-called scientists are doubly 

 guilty. In the first place as to their claims as authoritative scientists 

 and investigators and secondly as to the fraudulent report of the 

 remedy itself. Scientific men of unquestioned high standing, do not 

 lend themselves to such practices. 



In the criminal practices above outlined it is the middleman, 

 dealer or jobber, who is most likely to prove the guilty party. The 

 grower or collector is as a rule closely supervised by the dealer, who 

 will generally insist upon a genuine article at the lowest possible figure 

 but who will not hesitate to accept low grade and adulterated drugs 

 at a very low price and selling them to the unwary and ignorant as 

 articles of first quality and at a first quality price. It is, after all, the 

 intelligent practicing pharmacist who must assume the responsibility 

 of purifying the drug trade. 



II. MANNER OF ADULTERATION 



The adulterants added to vegetable drugs vary greatly as to kind 

 and quantity. In some instances the foreign substance is added in 

 comparatively small quantities, so as to prevent ready detection; 

 in other instances large quantities are added, and again there maybe 

 complete substitution. We may, therefore, recognize partial sub- 

 stitution and complete substitution. 



1. Partial Substitution. 



This form of sophistication is most commonly practiced, the 

 intention being to retain the apparently normal identity of the drug. 

 The adulterant must, therefore, not be added in large quantities, other- 



