390 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
valuable plants. Then, again, as the leaves can form chlorophyll only in sun¬ 
shine, and can only then derive nourishment from the air, it must be remembered 
that, in dark and gloomy weather, we must supply less water and less nourish¬ 
ment to the roots, or the harmony of nature will be destroyed, and the conse¬ 
quences may be fatal. From the same considerations it will follow that too 
much artificial warmth in the night season will be injurious ; and, indeed, the 
plants never seem to thrive better than when a considerable range of tempera¬ 
ture between day and night is allowed to exist. I have found great practical 
benefit from adopting the system of double glazing , leaving a stratum of air 
about four inches in thickness between the sheets of glass. This tends great ly 
to prevent sudden chills, which are injurious, and also to retain a larger amount 
of moisture in the air surrounding the plants. This is much required and best 
secured by syringing the leaves with tepid water twice in the day, avoiding the 
collection of water around the roots. It is important to provide well for their 
drainage by means of broken bricks or tiles ; and I find an advantage in con¬ 
ducting the warm water of the return pipes below the level surface of the ground, 
so as to secure a slight and constant elevation of the temperature. I have 
a thermometer plunged eighteen inches in the bed of earth in which my largest 
plants grow, and I have not noticed this below 50° F. in winter. I think that 
the proper range of temperature might be placed at from 55° F. in winter 
to 65° in summer. 
It is very important to allow as much access of fresh air as possible. It must 
be remembered that these are mountain plants, loving free air and alternate 
mist and sunshine, whilst the hot, close atmosphere of the lower valleys is always 
injurious to their perfection as quinine-producing plants, and generally fatal to 
their growth.* The very condition of life depends on the constituent mole¬ 
cules of an organized body being never all in repose ; and whilst these are, on the 
one hand, received from without, on the other hand effete particles are continually 
expelled from the plant, whilst others are deposited in the formed tissues, thus 
building up gradually the solid portions of the structure. In this manner plants 
live, grow, and multiply under the influence of the vital force ; and if these 
phenomena were more constantly under the notice of our writers on Nature, 
we should perhaps be able nationally to elaborate something better than me¬ 
chanical theories of life, forced upon our acceptance with an amount of confi¬ 
dence bearing an inverse ratio to the proofs produced. We should, perhaps, not 
be told that “ there is no real difference between vital and physical forces.” 
Even the theory of cell-formation as the origin of all living things, though true 
as to the manner in which nature works, yet does not elucidate her mysteries. It 
seems to solve more than it really does explaiu, for what is the cell but the 
boundary within which naffnre carries on her operations P "j" and, after all, what 
are these? and what is life? Whoever watches the manner in which nature 
acts the gedile with her cells—(“ diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis ”)— 
will think little of the cell itself, and much of that which it contains. If I take 
* I have recently had the opportunity of observing the same result as produced by similar 
causes in India. Two specimens of red bark were sent over for analysis from “ Balmadies,” a 
cinchona plantation belonging to Mr. Rohde. One of these presented the usual appearance of 
East Indian succirubra hark. Mr. Broughton informs me that it was grown in a valley ad¬ 
joining the Neilgherries, at an elevation of about 4000 feet. Mr. B. made an examination of 
it. Though actually lower in elevation than the site of the lower Crown barks on the Nedi- 
wuttum plantations, which produce much cinchonidine, it is tolerably rich in quinine. “ The 
climate differs from these latter by this peculiarity, that during the dry season fogs and mist 
roll up each day from the western coast and moisten the leaves, and shade them from the 
baking Indian sun.” The other specimen had the aspect of the C. rubra dura of the Ger¬ 
mans, and contained less quinine, but more than twice as much cinchonidine. It came “ from 
the hot bottom of the valley.” 
f See ‘ Chemismus der Pflanzenzelle,’ von Dr. H. Karsten. Wien, 1869, pp. 6, 6, etc. 
