76 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



Condition of the collection. — The following is an accurate statement: 



Number of specimens now on exhibition 3, 201 



Number of specimens awaiting case room 289 



Number of specimens, duplicates 300 



Total number entered on register 4, 442 



The origin of this collection dates to 1882, when the Agricultural De- 

 partment transferred to this institution the several collections of drugs 

 which were exhibited at the International Exhibition, Philadelphia, 

 1876. It has, through the kindness of the wholesale drug firms of 

 W. H. Schieffelin & Co., N. Y. ; Parke, Davis & Co., Detroit, Mich. ; Mc- 

 Kesson & Bobbins, N. Y.; Wallace Bros., Statesville, N". C, and others, 

 together with exchanges with foreign museums, grown to be one of the 

 largest of its kind. 



The object of such a collection is to exhibit drugs in their crude state, 

 and the different preparations of them, and thus serve to illustrate to 

 what stage of perfection man has arrived in the use of medicines. 



The collection at present as a whole already represents the principal 

 drugs in most of their commercial varieties now in use by the civilized 

 people of the world, including nearly all of the new remedies that have 

 lately been brought to the notice of the profession. Therefore the prog- 

 ress of the future development of this collection of the Museum can per- 

 haps hardly be expected to be as rapid as it has been in the past, for 

 the majority of acquisitions will be found to consist of duplicates. 



The labelling of the collection, which heretofore has been the most 

 important routine work, has offered many serious difficulties. The prin- 

 cipal ones may be plainly traced to two sources, viz : First, the difficulty 

 of judiciously and carefully condensing information when such is found 

 in abundance, so that it will only occupy the limited space allowed for 

 each label by the Museum regulations, keeping in constant view the 

 double end of the exhibit, which is that of a popular exhibition for the 

 information of the general visitor as well as a scientific collection and 

 arrangement of facts for the pharmaceutical and medical student. Sec- 

 ondly, the obscure drugs of which either very little is known or, at any 

 rate, information is very imperfect. The labelling of the entire collec- 

 tion, which has been zealously pursued, will probably be finished during 

 the first part of 1885. 



Recommendations for future work. — It now remains to extend the use- 

 fulness and importance of this section of the Museum in a direction 

 which, from the natural course of events, it must go to bring it up to 

 the prestige of that scientific institution of which, in time to come, it 

 will, it is to be hoped, form a most important part. 



Plant analysis and pharmacological experiments, or the investigation 

 of the chemical constituents of plants and their action on the animal 

 organism, call loudly for a recognition denied them. For the last twenty 

 years but little has been accomplished in this line of research. Instead of 

 taking, as it ought, a foremost place, on account' of the immediate practi- 



