Am.  Jour.  Pharm.i 
October,  1910.  J 
Pink-Root. 
467 
The  first  announcement  of  this  adulterant  appears  to  have  been 
made  at  a  pharmaceutical  meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy,  February  16,  1875,  when  "  Dr.  Miller  presented  a 
sophistication  of  spigelia,  to  which  his  attention  was  drawn  by  S. 
W.  Brown  of  Manayunk.  Upon  inquiry  he  learned  it  was  known 
in  the  market  as  East  Tennessee  pink-root;  but  the  plant  from 
which  it  is  derived  has  not  been  ascertained.  It  is  said  to  be  largely 
sold  to  manufacturers  of  fluidextracts." 
At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Asso- 
ciation, in  Boston,  in  1875,  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller,  as  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  adulterations  and  sophistications,  presented  the  final 
report,  quoted  by  Stockberger,  in  which  he  gives  a  more  detailed 
account  of  the  adulterated  pink-root  and  records  securing  an  addi- 
tional supply  of  this  "  so-called  East  Tennessee  pink-root "  from  a 
commission  merchant  in  Philadelphia. 
Miller  also  reports  addressing  a  letter  of  inquiry  to  Messrs. 
Wallace  Bros.,  of  Statesville,  North  Carolina,  who  "  have  since 
been  able  to  identify  the  sample  as  the  root  of  Phlox  Carolina  known 
with  them  as  the  Carolina  pink." 
From  the  available  publications  it  would  appear  that  the  adul- 
teration was  brought  to  the  attention  of  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller  by  S. 
W.  Brown,  of  Manayunk,  and  that  Dr.  Miller  submitted  samples 
of  the  root  to  Wallace  Bros.,  who  identified  the  same  as  Phlox 
Carolina. 
It  is  quite  likely  that  the  claim  recorded  by  Stockberger  as 
having  been  made  by  M.  E.  Hyams  is  correct,  as  a  personal 
letter  recently  received  from  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller  recalls  that  a  Prof. 
Hyams  was  formerly  in  the  employ  of  Wallace  Bros,  or  affiliated 
with  them  as  botanist,  and  it  is  quite  probable  that  the  inquiry  from 
Philadelphia  was  submitted  to  him  so  that  the  sequence  would  be 
complete  and  Prof.  M.  E.  Hyams  really  the  first  to  mistake,  as  True 
and  others  have  pointed  out,  Ruellia  as  Phlox. 
An  even  more  interesting  question  is  the  one  as  to  the  identity 
of  the  second  pink-root  used  in  Eclectic  and  to  some  extent  also 
in  domestic  practice  during  the  earlier  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 
Dr.  Benjamin  Smith  Barton,  in  his  "  Collections  for  an  Essay 
Towards  a  Materia  Medica  of  the  United  States,"  says :  "  The 
Silene  virginica  or  ground  pink,  as  it  is  called  in  some  parts  of  our 
country,  is  another  native  anthelmintic.    A  decoction  of  the  root 
