206 
ON EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM. 
me the druggists then cared more for cost than quality, all I could do 
was to accommodate them. It is comparatively an easy matter to 
reduce drugs to a certain degree of fineness, but to go beyond that 
is the trouble. The hard work and time employed increases in 
geometrical progression in proportion to their fineness. If one 
take a hammer, for instance, and strikes a stone, he breaks it into 
two pieces — it will take two blows to break it into four — four 
blows to break it into eight pieces, and so on. The time and 
labor of reducing a substance to a million of particles is little 
compared to what is required to reduce that million to twenty 
millions of particles. It was entirely impossible for me to put 
this additional labor on an article and receive no more for it than 
my competitors, who could powder in their way 100 lbs. in the 
same time and w T ith the same force and power that it took me to 
powder 10 lbs. This is the wmole story, and accounts for the infe- 
rior fineness of our powders for some years past. I am now endea- 
voring to bring up the standard. The druggists are becoming 
aware of the necessity of doing so, and it remains to be seen 
whether I shall succeed or not. I suppose the superiority of fine 
over coarse powders, in the practice of medicine, is universally 
admitted, and that the same rule thai applies to mercury in blue 
pill, applies also to them ; that is, the more minute the particles, 
the more surface they present for the action of the stomach. 
I intended to have noticed in detail Mr. Redwood's article, and 
have much more to say on the subject ; but I feel that I have 
already taken up too much space, and may perhaps some day 
resume the subject. 
ON EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM. 
By Weatiierill Peterson. 
(An Inaugural Essay.) 
The Eupatorium Perfoliatum of the United States Pharmaco- 
poeia, belonging to the seventeenth class, first order of Linnaeus, 
and to the Asteraceae of Dr. Lindley, is one of the most common 
of our indigenous syngenesious plants. 
It is found throughout almost the whole extent of our country, 
