Am.  Jour.  Pnarm.  I 
Januar.v.  1901.  j 
Echinacea  Angustifolia. 
'7 
and  advised  that  the  remedy  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  other  physicians 
of  experience  in  whom  he  had  confidence,  and  to  whom  he  wrote. 
Accordingly,  I  placed  the  preparation  that  Dr.  King  preferred  in 
the  hands  of  Prof.  I.  J.  M.  Goss,  M.D.,  of  Atlanta,  Ga.,  Prof.  H.  T. 
Webster,  M.D.,  of  Oakland,  Cal.,  and  others,  who  investigated  the 
remedy  after  the  suggestions  of  Dr.  Meyer  and  Professor  King,  and, 
if  I  mistake  not,  Dr.  Meyer  also  corresponded  with  these  gentlemen. 
Two  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  investigation,  Professor  King, 
in  the  1887  Eclectic  Medical  Journal,  page  209,  wrote  an  article  on 
the  therapy  of  the  drug  Echinacea,  which  was  the  first  published 
reference  thereto,  and  this  was  followed  by  an  article  by  Professor 
Goss.  When  Professor  Webster's  work  on  "  Dynamical  Therapeu- 
tics "  appeared,  he  gave  Echinacea  considerable  conspicuity,  which 
was  the  first  authentic  attention  received  by  this  plant  in  a  book 
under  covers.  These  works  by  professional  men  of  distinction,  led 
to  attention  from  eclectic  physicians,  their  contributions  to  eclectic 
literature  becoming  frequent.  From  this  date,  the  name  and  claims 
and  uses  of  the  remedy  crept  gradually  outside  of  our  school. 
In  1893,  Mr.  C.  G.  Lloyd  contributed  to  the  Eclectic  Annual,  page 
332,  an  article  on  the  drug  and  its  identification,  lor  many  persons 
were  then  confusing  Echinacea  purpureum  with  Echinacea  angusti- 
folia. All  of  this  time,  I  was  rather  resisting  the  claims  made  by 
the  enthusiastic  friends  of  Echinacea  angustifolia,  believing  that  con- 
servatism is  to  be  preferred  to  over-enthusiasm,  and  yet  one  conspicu- 
ous object-lesson  before  me  in  its  early  history  led  me  to  be  more 
tolerant  in  its  behalf  than  otherwise  I  might  have  been.  The  wife 
of  Professor  King  had  long  since  been  attacked  by  a  cancer,  and 
Professor  King  had  tried  every  remedy  that  he  could  think  of  as  a 
palliator,  and  at  last  turned  to  the  preparations  of  Echinacea,  which, 
as  claimed  by  both  Mrs.  King  and  himself,  gave  her  the  only  relief 
she  had  obtained.  According  to  Professor  King,  it  retarded  the 
progress  of  the  enemy  as  no  other  remedy  had  done.  For  years  she 
had  suffered  with  this  cancer,  and  informed  me  herself  that  when 
Echinacea  was  not  used  she  noticed  an  immediate  change  for  the 
worse.  To  such  an  extent  did  she  believe  in  the  use  of  Echinacea 
that,  on  her  account  alone,  before  the  remedy  was  known  to  others, 
I  made  it  a  duty  to  keep  a  constant  supply  on  hand,  and  to  the  day 
of  her  death  she  could  not  do  without  Echinacea.  That  it  palliated 
this  individual  case  I  had  no  doubt,  and  this  personal  instance,  as  I 
