ON  RICINUS  COMMUNIS. 
207 
save  to  yourself,  and  in  this  consists  your  true  virtue.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  be  great  upon  occasion,  when  public  applause  and  sil- 
ver plate  are  the  showy  rewards  in  prospect — men  of  base  and  sel- 
fish minds  might  even  court  opportunity  for  such  display — but  the 
true  gold  of  a  man's  character  is  proved  by  his  devotion  to  duty 
for  the  sake  of  duty,  to  the  performance  of  duties  unknown  to 
others  that  are  often  tedious  and  burdensome,  the  full  and  faith- 
ful discharge  of  his  duties,  not  because  in  so  doing  he  is  seen  or 
praised  or  will  ever  be  appreciated  or  rewarded,  but  from  his  own 
sense  of  right. 
In  your  practice  as  Pharmaceutists  nothing  can  be  wholly  unim- 
portant. Your  course  cannot  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the 
community  around  you.  If  you  are  any  thing  in  your  profession,  if 
you  move  at  all  in  it,  you  must  exert  some  influence,  more  or  less, 
good  or  evil.  Be  ever  watchful  that  it  is  good.  Be  great  if  you  can, 
but  be  faithful  whether  or  not,  and  if  your  name  be  not  famous  it 
will  be  honorable,  if  not  spoken  all  over  the  earth,  it  will  be  a 
pleasant  sound  to  your  neighbors,  reminding  them  of  a  trusty  friend 
in  seasons  of  anxiety  and  suffering,  and  synonomous  in  their  esti- 
mation with  all  that  designates  the  upright  and  useful  man. 
ON  RICINIS  COMMUNIS. 
By  Henry  Bower. 
(An  Inaugural  Essay,  presented  to  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy, 
March,  1854.) 
The  castor  oil  plant  (Ricinus  communis)  belongs  to  the  natural 
order  Euphorbiacese,  whose  affinities  have  not  yet  been  accurately 
limited  by  Botanists ;  but  it  is  supposed  to  comprise  1500  species, 
distributed  in  each  quarter  of  the  globe,  from  the  equator  to  lati- 
tudes as  high  as  Great  Britain.  "  Sometimes  found,"  as  Professor 
Lindley  remarks,  "  in  the  form  of  large  trees,  frequently  of  bushes, 
still  more  usually  of  diminutive  weeds,  and  occasionally  of  de- 
formed, leafless,  succulent  plants,  resembling  the  cacti  in  their 
port." 
The  properties  of  this  order  of  plants  are  remarkably  varied, 
not  only  as  regards  their  physical  effects,  which  range  from  gentle 
stimulants  to  rank  poisons,  but  also  in  those  principles  residing  in 
different  portions  of  the  plant.  In  the  Ricinus  communis  they  are 
