CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 407 



properly drying them and preparing them for the market. When 

 not only the nature of the plant but the diversity of the constit- . 

 uents of vegetable drugs is taken into consideration, it will be seen 

 that the collection and preparation of them for the market is really 

 a fine art, requiring extended knowledge and experience, and a 

 keen appreciation of the difference in quality due to factors of 

 this kind. The large crude-drug collectors give instruction to 

 their employes as to the methods to be followed in the preparation 

 of the drug, this knowledge having been acquired as the result of 

 years of experience. We are apt to think that the only drugs that 

 require particular care are those like tobacco, vanilla and gentian, 

 in which in addition to drying there is a curing process that takes 

 place ; but this is true also of digitalis, the solanaceous leaves and 

 many of the other important drugs. While the quality thus 

 acquired, like that of teas and wines, etc., cannot readily be deter- 

 mined by any assay process, the therapeutist is able to detect the 

 difference between the drug that has been carefully collected and 

 prepared and the one that has been carelessly handled. 



It has already been pointed out that plants consist in large 

 proportion of water, and when they are collected and dried there 

 is necessarily considerable loss. The loss is greater in the case 

 of herbaceous plants, where the yield of crude drug is only about 

 10 per cent., as in eupatorium and stramonium. Roots and rhi- 

 zomes yield on an average from 20 to 30 per cent, of dried drug. 

 In some cases, as in hops, the yield of dried drug is over 60 per 

 cent., and in fruits and seed|»€^ere is very little loss. 



CULTIVATED MEDICINAL PLANTS.— Of the strictly 

 medicinal plants which arcf under successful cultivation in the 

 United States attention may be called to the following: Mentha 

 piperita. Crocus sativus, Digitalis purpurea, Atropa Belladonna, 

 Conium tnaculatum, Matricaria Chamomilla, Calendula officinalis, 

 Valeriana officinalis. Inula Helenium, Ricinus communis, Panax 

 quinquefolium, and Urtica urens. In addition, a number of 

 medicinal plants are cultivated as garden herbs for domestic use, 

 some of them since colonial times, as anise, balm, sweet basil, 

 bene, boneset, borage, caraway, catnip, coltsfoot, coriander, cumin, 

 dill, sweet fennel, hoarhound, lavender, pennyroyal, rosemary, 

 rue, sage, summer and winter savory, sweet marjoram, symphy- 



