CHAPTER VI 

 ADULTERATION OR SOPHISTICATION OF VEGETABLE DRUGS 



It is not necessary to enter into a discussion of the various motives 

 which lead to the practice of sophistication in pharmacy; suffice it to 

 know that crude as well as powdered vegetable drugs are frequently 

 placed upon the market- variously adulterated. In some instances 

 adulteration is the rule rather than the exception, as in the case of 

 powdered cloves, mace and of other spices, powdered sarsaparilla, 

 spigelia and aconite, etc. In recognition of such facts it becomes 

 highly important that the practicing pharmacist should have the 

 training requisite to detect such fraudulent work. 



Naturally, those who market adulterated drugs make special 

 efforts to conceal the fraud, and in this the misplaced ability of the 

 unscrupulous is pitted against the intelligence of the trained pharma- 

 cist, whose duty it is to detect and expose such fraudulent practices. 

 The uneducated and inadequately qualified pharmacist is wholly 

 defenseless against the criminal practices of the unprincipled collector, 

 dealer and jobber, and such unqualified pharmacists cannot guarantee 

 pure drugs to the physician and in turn the physician is unable to 

 give his patients the proper treatment, because, as a rule, the physician 

 is not qualified to judge the purity and quality of the medicamenta 

 prepared by the druggist. The sick are thus absolutely helpless in 

 the matter. 



It is evident that with the progress in pharmaceutical education 

 adulteration decreases and the methods of adulteration become altered 

 in accordance with such progress. Because of the closer study of 

 crude drugs and of powdered drugs resulting from the operation of the 

 pure drugs laws, the former crude methods of adulteration have been 

 abandoned because of the ease with which they were detected. Some 

 of the modern methods of adulteration, however, incite the admiration 

 of the skilled analyst. Some clever deceptions are now being prac- 

 ticed. Many of the present forms of adulteration are indeed crude 

 enough as to materials used but the actual operation of the fraud is 

 often a skillful evasion and perversion of the law by lawyer as well as 

 judge, against which the testimony of skilled analyst is of ten ineffective. 



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