Am.  Jour,  pharm. )        jne  American  Materia  Medica.  Qi 
February,  1910.   j  ^ 
ments.  In  it  all,  however,  he  appealed  more  directly  than  any  be- 
fore him  had  done  to  the  American  materia  medica,  inaugurating 
a  process  of  clinical  therapeutic  investigations  more  systematic,  per- 
haps, than  had  previously  been  comprehended.  His  antagonists 
within  the  school  were  many,  because  the  ideals  of  the  past  were  be- 
ing shattered  by  the  man  who  so  well  appreciated  both  the  oppor- 
tunity and  necessities  of  the  present.  But  of  this  in  its  detail  we 
need  not  speak,  our  object  being  to  introduce  the  materia  medica 
problem  of  the  epoch  of  i860.  Through  the  heirlooms  of  the  past 
and  the  processes  of  the  then  present,  the  eclectics  had  come  to  be  the 
principal  and  the  recognized  developers  of  the  American  materia 
medica,  which  had  once  been  the  hope  of  such  as  Schoepf,  Barton, 
Thacher,  Thomson,  and  of  Beach.  To  the  plant  remedies  used  by 
these  men,  Scudder  and  his  adherents  now  added,  one  by  one,  as 
necessity  and  opportunity  for  investigation  presented,  this  or  that 
remedial  agent  before  unknown,  abandoning  many  in  turn  as  being 
less  valuable  than  others  thus  introduced.  Each  drug  was  studied 
after  the  new  method,  which  was  not  that  of  the  destruction  cf  the 
drug's  individuality,  not  that  of  compounding  it  with  a  number  of 
other  substances  and  overloading  it  with  sugar  and  glycerin  and 
other  extraneous  materials,  but  of  utilizing  its  qualities  in  the  most 
eligible  and  permanent  form,  when  the  plant  was  in  its  best  condition. 
Under  such  methods  of  investigation  and  such  ideals,  the  eclectic 
school  has  progressed,  from  the  advent  of  Scudder,  for  a  period  of 
nearly  half  a  century. 
Commercialism. — It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  aimed  in  this 
record  of  the  American  materia  medica  to  restrict  my  study  to  in- 
fluences mainly  connected  with  what  is  understood  as  the  profes- 
sional side  of  life.  Excepting  the  introductory  complications  in  the 
direction  of  the  pioneer  in  domestic  medication,  no  reference  has 
been  made  to  what  many  consider  commercialism  in  medicine.  Alas, 
from  beginning  to  end  this  has  been  too  great  a  factor.  Had  this 
phase  of  my  subject  been  incorporated  into  this  paper,  an  additional 
chapter,  fully  as  long  as  the  present  paper,  would  have  been  required. 
These  so-called  commercial  influences  were  not  abruptly  nor  yet 
recently  thrown  into  the  field.  Upon  the  contrary,  beginning  in  the 
earliest  days  of  the  therapy  of  American  drugs,  we  find  a  dominating 
influence  to  be  what  is  known  as  commercialism  but  which  is  very 
difficult  to  define.  It  was  linked  with  the  early  record,  in  Massachu- 
setts as  well  as  in  Pennsylvania.    It  was  woven  into  some  of  the 
