524  Powdered  Vegetable  Drugs.  {Am6^mim' 
(5)  No  additional  expense  may  be  felt  by  the  pharmacist  for  secur- 
ing other  containers  than  those  in  which  his  products  come  to  him. 
Some  of  the  disadvantages  in  the  purchasing  of  powdered  drugs 
are : 
(1)  That  the  drug  in  this  condition  costs  from  5  to  50  per  cent, 
more. 
(2)  The  apprentice  does  not  obtain  the  kind  of  practical  experi- 
ence in  grinding  drugs  that  will  be  always  of  inestimable  value  to 
him  in  determining  either  their  identity  or  quality. 
(3)  The  product  which  has  been  ground  by  someone  else  is  likely 
to  be  more  uncertain  than  one  ground  by  the  pharmacist  himself 
from  crude  drugs  of  which  he  can  so  readily  test  the  quality. 
(4)  There  is  at  present  no  easy  method  for  the  average  pharma- 
cist to  determine  the  purity  of  the  powdered  drugs  he  purchases. 
Now,  some  pharmacists  have  the  idea  that  a  large  sum  of  money 
must  be  expended  in  order  to  be  able  to  grind  one's  own  drugs — 
that,  for  instance,  steam-power  is  necessary,  an  expensive  mill  must 
be  provided  and  a  special  room  set  apart  for  doing  this  kind  of 
work.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  such  an  expensive  and  elabo- 
rate plant  is  impracticable  as  well  as  unnecessary.  Comparatively 
little  money  need  be  expended  to  purchase  a  good  hand-mill  and 
the  necessary  sieves.  With  but  very  little  outlay,  the  retail  pharma- 
cist can  grind  his  own  drugs  and  overcome  the  disadvantages  above 
noted.  It  is  not  the  object  of  this  paper,  however,  to  discourage 
the  buying  of  powdered  drugs  or  even  to  compare  the  expense  of 
grinding  either  commercial  drugs  or  those  of  one's  own  collecting 
with  that  of  commercial  powdered  products,  but  to  consider  the 
qualitative  and  quantitative  investigation  of  powdered  drugs. 
QUALITATIVE  EXAMINATION. 
We  are  indebted  particularly  to  the  labors  of  Fliickiger,  Wigand, 
Vogl,  Arthur  Meyer,  Moeller,  Tschirch,  Schrenck  and  others,  who, 
during  the  past  ten  years,  chiefly  have  given  to  us  in  their  publica- 
tions the  characteristic  structures  of  many  of  our  crude  drugs.  All 
this  has  been  necessary  and  is  a  preparation  for  the  study  of  pow- 
dered drugs.  While  much  has  been  done,  even  in  the  study  of 
powdered  products,  there  still  remains  much  to  be  done  in  the  study 
of  both  crude  (particularly  American)  and  powdered  drugs.  Sev- 
eral things  are  necessary  for  the  study  of  powdered  drugs : 
