176 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 
purposes should grow under natural conditions. Cultivation 
of plants tends to diminish in quantity or to eradicate their 
noxious or medicinal principles. According to Professor Vogel, 
hemlock does not yield coniin in Scotland; cinchona plants 
are nearly free from quinine when grown in hothouses; and 
tannin is also found in the greatest quantity in trees which 
have a direct supply of sunlight. Wild belladonna plants 1 
contain more alkaloids than the cultivated. 
Until within a comparatively very recent date, there were 
no schemes for vegetable analyses equivalent to Fresenius’ s 
“ Manual for Inorganic Substances.” The irregularities of the 
methods of individual investigators in plant chemistry made 
it extremely difficult for students to follow this kind of analy¬ 
sis. The deficiency has been filled by the admirable book on 
“ Plant Analysis,” by Professor Dragendorff, of Dorpat, Russia. 
This book has appeared in a French translation, 2 and the 
first edition of an English translation 3 was published a year 
before. Professor Dragendorff does not claim to have written a 
perfect book. He offers a scheme, which, if followed, supple¬ 
mented by well-known or original methods in the study of 
special or new compounds, will give the student a knowledge 
of the chemical constituents of a plant which he could not well 
obtain by a non-systematic scheme. 
Dragendorff’s scheme has been criticised as encouraging a 
mechanical method of work on the part of the analyst, but I 
think any student, on working for the first time on a new drug, 
by this method will find that he will be thrown very much on 
his own resources, and that the scheme serves him merely as 
a chain and anchor in a sea of novelty and uncertainty. It 
is indeed the most complete scheme for plant analysis which 
we have. 
The scope of plant analysis is well outlined by Dragendorff 
in his introduction, and if my time permitted me I could not 
1 “The Alkaloidal Value of Cultivated and Wild Belladonna,” by Girrard. 
Pharm. Jour, and Trans., vol. xv, p. 153. 
2 Encyclopedic Chimique, tome x, “Analyse chimique des Vegetaux.” 
Traduit de l’allemand et annote, par F. Schlagdenhauffen. Paris, 1885. 
3 Plant Analysis, by G. Dragendorff. Translated from the German by 
H. G. Greenish. London, 1884. 
