3H 
Cheap  Drugs. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharrr . 
July,  1902. 
(2)  Leaves  should  be  collected  when  the  C02  assimilation  process 
is  most  active.  Usually  about  the  time  of  development  of  the 
flowers  and  before  mature  development  of  fruit  and  seed. 
(3)  Flowers  should  be  collected  prior  to  or  just  about  the  time 
of  pollination. 
(4)  Fruits  should  be  collected  near  the  ripening  period  (i.e.,  full- 
grown  but  unripe.) 
(5)  Seeds  should  be  collected  when  fully  matured. 
As  showing  the  influence  which  the  time  of  collection  has  on  the 
quality  of  drugs  and  necessarily  on  the  price,  the  following  illus- 
trations may  be  given  :  It  is  well  known  that  when  the  fruits  of 
conium  are  green  they  will  yield  over  3  per  cent,  of  coniine,  but 
when  they  change  to  yellow,  the  alkaloid  diminishes  rapidly  in 
quantity,  and  therefore  much  of  the  commercial  drug  will  not  yield 
1  per  cent,  of  coniine.  The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  santonin : 
when  the  flower-heads  are  unexpanded  they  will  yield  over  3  per 
cent,  of  santonin ;  but  just  so  soon  as  the  flower  matures  there 
is  a  rapid  disappearance  of  the  anthelmintic  principle.  Dealers  in 
insect  flowers  (flores  pyrethri)  know  that  those  gathered  when  the 
flowers  are  closed  produce  the  finest  and  most  powerful  insect 
powder,  and  it  is  worth  nearly  twice  as  much  as  that  made  from  the 
half-closed  or  open  flowers.  Podophyllum  should  be  collected  in 
the  spring  when  the  plant  is  just  coming  out  of  the  ground,  the 
resin  content  being  nearly  twice  as  much  at  this  time  as  at  others. 
Geranium,  likewise,  should  be  gathered  early  in  the  spring  prior 
to  the  flowering  period.  In  a  general  way,  we  may  say  that  roots 
and  rhizomes  should  be  compact,  hard  and  heavy,  instead  of  being 
light  and  having  a  loose  and  spongy  texture. 
It  is  also  important  to  remember  that  some  of  the  compositse 
have  two  flowering  periods  in  one  year,  as  taraxacum  and  anthemis. 
Flowers  of  the  first  crop  of  anthemis  are  larger,  whiter  than  those  of 
the  second  crop,  and  command  fancy  prices.  In  the  case  of  taraxa- 
cum this  factor  has  probably  not  been  considered,  and  may  account 
for  certain  of  the  difficulties  in  obtaining  a  medicinally  active  drug. 
It  may  be  that  the  variation  in  quality  of  some  of  the  commercial 
aconite  is  due  to  improper  drying  or  extraction  of  the  active  prin- 
ciples; still  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  much  of  the  trouble  with  this 
drug  is  due  to  the  variation  in  the  time  of  collection  in  various 
countries  as  well  as  to  its  being  collected  from  other  species.  In 
